Scholastic Acquires Teacher's Friend Publications

Posted on May 2, 2002

Scholastic Inc. announced the acquisition of Teacher's Friend Publications, Inc., a producer and marketer of teacher classroom decoratives, for approximately $6 million. The Riverside, California-based company is owned and run by Karen and Richard Sevaly, who began the business in 1986 and grew revenue to over $4 million in 2001. Richard and Karen Sevaly will continue to run Teacher's Friend from its headquarters in California. The company will join Scholastic's Teaching Resources division.

Richard Sevaly, President and CEO of Teacher's Friend, said: "Joining the Scholastic family will greatly increase our reach to teachers through the company's distribution channels and strong relationships with educators. We see many similar values with Scholastic that will help Teacher's Friend to grow."

Teacher's Friend designs, manufactures and distributes over 700 items for teachers to decorate their classrooms, including bulletin boards, banners, borders, name plates, charts, maps, stickers, posters and stationery. Teacher's Friend also produces teacher resource books.

Dick Robinson, Scholastic's Chairman, CEO and President said: "Karen and Richard have designed and manufactured a full array of terrific merchandise that teachers love to purchase to decorate their classrooms and create exciting environments for learning. This acquisition is a terrific opportunity for Scholastic to increase our participation in this lucrative market. In addition, we can provide more support for the teachers we serve by making Teacher's Friend products available through Scholastic's unique proprietary channels such as Book Clubs, Book Fairs, direct mail, and our newly launched Teacher Store on Scholastic.com."