HarperCollins Christian Publishing has acquired an 85% stake in Thomas Nelson Brasil (TNB) from joint venture partner Ediouro Group, the 70-year-old, Rio-based trade publisher it partnered with to create the company in 2006, a deal that brought Ediouro into the Christian publishing business. Tod Shuttleworth, senior v-p of international publishing at HCCP, will oversee TNB from Nashville, as he does HCCP’s Spanish-language operations. Antonio Araujo remains general manager of TNB in Brazil; Omar Souza is publisher.

Majority ownership of TNB solidifies HCCP’s strategy of reaching Brazil’s growing population of evangelical Christians—estimated at 22% to 25% of the country’s population of 200 million, according to Shuttleworth, who said he bases those numbers on data from the Brazilian government. Evangelicalism has seen rapid growth in Brazil: “Twenty-five years ago, evangelicals were less than 2% in Brazil,” Shuttleworth said, citing the appeal of its message in Third World countries--in Africa and parts of Asia as well as Latin America. “We bring a message of hope, and that message is welcome in these countries,” he said.

Reaching audiences in Latin America has been a major initiative for Thomas Nelson since the early ‘90s, when the company acquired Spanish-language publishers Editorial Caribe and Editorial Betania to create its Grupo Nelson imprint. HCCP’s Spanish-language products are sold into every Spanish-speaking Latin American country except Cuba; revenues are twice those of its Portuguese-language TNB products, Shuttleworth said. (HCCP also sells Spanish-language books into Spain, where evangelicalism has been a harder sell than in less-developed countries; Shuttleworth estimates that less than 2% of Spain’s population is evangelical.)

In 2013, TNB began publishing Bibles, which brought a 57% increase in revenues and made it the second-largest evangelical publisher in Brazil, according to Shuttleworth. (Mundo Cristão is the largest.) TNB has had such trade successes as Casamento Blinddado (The Bulletproof Marriage) by Renato and Cristiane Cardosa, which has sold 1.8 million copies, according to the company. HCCP stated plans are for TNB to continue to publish English-speaking authors with global presence as well as indigenous authors and Brazil-specific content.