Bloomsbury Publishing
Traded as | LSE: BMY |
---|---|
Founded | 26 September 1986 |
Founder | Nigel Newton |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | London |
Key people |
Sir Anthony Salz (Non-executive Chairman)[1] Nigel Newton (Chief Executive) |
Publication types | books, academic journals, digital content products and online resources such as databases |
Revenue | £110 million |
Official website | Bloomsbury |
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc is an independent, worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden and it has a US publishing office located in New York City, an India publishing office in New Delhi and an Australia sales office in Sydney CBD. The company's growth over the past two decades is primarily attributable to the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling and, from 2008, to the development of its academic and professional publishing division. The Bloomsbury Academic & Professional division won the Bookseller Industry Award for Academic, Educational & Professional Publisher of the Year in both 2013 and 2014.
Divisions
Bloomsbury Publishing group has four separate publishing divisions — Academic & Professional; Adult; Children's and Educational; and Information and Business Development — supported by group functions, namely Sales and Marketing, Book Production, Finance and Technology. Imprints and book lists of publishing businesses acquired by Bloomsbury are assigned to the most relevant publishing division.
History
The company was founded in 1986 by Nigel Newton, who had previously been employed by other publishing companies. It was floated as a public registered company in 1994, raising £5.5million, which was used to fund expansion of the company into paperback and children's books. A rights issue of shares in 1998 raised a further £6.1m, which was used to expand the company, in particular to found a U.S. branch. In 1998, Bloomsbury USA was established. Bloomsbury USA Books for Young Readers was established in 2002, and in 2005, Bloomsbury acquired Walker & Co, a small company dedicated to publishing nonfiction.[2]
In 2000, Bloomsbury acquired A&C Black Plc with the imprints associated with A & C Black which was a substantial acquisition and developed the profile of Bloomsbury's publishing offering. In 2008, Bloomsbury opened a branch in Doha, Qatar, under joint-partnership with Qatar Foundation. The publishing house created, called Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, works mainly with English and Arabic literature. In 2008 and 2009, Bloomsbury acquired Tottel Publishing (renamed as Bloomsbury Professional) and various academic imprints (consolidated to form Bloomsbury Academic).
In 2010, Bloomsbury established a sales office in Australia. In 2012, Bloomsbury established a publishing office in India. During 2010 to 2015, Bloomsbury acquired various academic and special interest companies, imprints and book lists that have been absorbed mainly into the Bloomsbury Academic and Professional publishing division.
Acquisitions
Among the companies, book lists and imprints that Bloomsbury has acquired are:[3]
- A & C Black - 2000
- Whitaker's Almanack - 2002
- T & AD Poyser - 2002
- Thomas Reed Publications - 2002
- Peter Collin Publishing - 2002
- Andrew Brodie Publications - 2003
- Walker Publishing Company - 2004
- Methuen Drama - 2006
- Berg Publishers - 2008
- John Wisden & Co - 2008
- Arden Shakespeare - 2008
- Tottel Publishing - 2009
- Bristol Classical Press - 2010
- Continuum International Publishing Group - 2011
- Fairchild Books - 2012
- Applied Visual Arts Publishing - 2012
- Hart Publishing - 2013
- Osprey Publishing - 2014