Houghton Mifflin

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Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. They publish textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults, including the Best American series (annual collections of previously-published fiction and non-fiction).

1 Company history
2 Current events
3 Locations
4 External links

[edit] Company history

In 1832, William Ticknor and James Thomas Fields had gathered an impressive list of writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau. The duo formed a close relationship with Riverside Press, a Boston printing company owned by Henry Oscar Houghton. Shortly after, Houghton also founded a publishing company with partner George Mifflin. In 1880, Ticknor and Fields, and Houghton and Mifflin merged their operations, combining the literary works of writers with the expertise of a publisher, creating a new partnership named Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

Shortly thereafter, the company established an Educational Department and from 1891 to 1908, sales of educational materials increased by five hundred percent. Soon after 1916, Houghton Mifflin became involved in publishing standardized tests and testing materials, working closely with developers of such tests, including E.F. Lindquist. The company was the fourth-largest educational publisher in the United States in 1921. Today, the company has combined its assessment products within Riverside Publishing, including San Francisco-based Edusoft. Houghton Mifflin sold its professional testing unit Promissor to Pearson plc in 2006.

In 1967, Houghton Mifflin became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol HTN. The company is currently privately held and no longer trades under this symbol.

During the 1990s, Houghton Mifflin acquired both McDougal Littell and Company, an educational publisher for secondary school materials, and D.C. Heath and Company, a publisher of supplemental educational materials. In 1996, the company created their Great Source Education Group to combine the supplemental material product lines of their School Division and these two companies.

In 2001, Houghton Mifflin was acquired by French media giant Vivendi Universal but shortly thereafter was sold to Thomas H. Lee, Bain Capital, and The Blackstone Group, who remain the current owners.

[edit] Current events

On October 22, 2006, The Times of London and the Sunday Business Post of Dublin both reported that a reverse takeover was be negotiated in which Riverdeep Holdings PLC of Dublin would pay about $3.5 billion to acquire Houghton Mifflin from Bain Capital, and The Blackstone Group.[1] Tony Lucki, Houghton Mifflin's chief executive is a former non-executive director of Riverdeep. [2]