Hachette to Buy Perseus Book Group

Posted on June 25, 2014

Michael Pietsch, the chief executive of Hachette Book Group told The New York Times that it will acquire trade publisher Perseus Book Group. Pietsch told the Times that the acquisition is part of the company's long-term plan to grow their business in the U.S. market. He said it has nothing to do with Hachette's ongoing battle with Amazon.com over book pricing and the renewal of their contract.

The New York Times isn't buying it, saying that the deal will give Hachette better bargaining power with Amazon by diversifying into nonfiction and academic books. Those categories of books still sell in print mostly rather than in ebook format, where Amazon is the undisputed king.

The deal is expected to go through at the end of July. Hachette will keep the publishing arm of Perseus, which had $100 million in sales last year, but will sell Perseus' distribution division, with hits warehouses and sales infrastructure, to Ingram Content Group.