The pending divestiture of Houghton Mifflin by Vivendi notwithstanding, merger and acquisition activity in 2002 has been extremely slow, but that may be changing. Several companies have made niche acquisitions over the last six weeks: Creative International, Taylor & Francis and Pearson Education all added new pieces to their existing operations.

And last month, F&W Publications completed the purchase of Krause Publications for $120 million. Based in Iola, Wis., Krause publishes 46 hobby magazines and has a 750-title book backlist.

In the most recent deal, Creative has signed a letter of intent with the U.K.'s Zenith Entertainment to acquire Zenith's children's book publishing division, Two-Can Publishing. Zenith acquired Two-Can in 1999, but decided to divest the unit to focus on its core business of television production. The acquisition is expected to be completed this month.

Two-Can has a backlist of approximately 250 nonfiction titles for children ages 3—13; many of its books are packaged with multimedia products such as CD-ROMs, and the line is sold to a number of international markets. After years of licensing its U.K. titles to U.S. publishers, Two-Can opened a U.S. office in February 2000 in Princeton, N.J., and released its first list under the Two-Can imprint two years ago. Following completion of the deal, Creative will phase out the five-person Princeton office and move its functions to Creative's offices in Chanhassen, Minn. The company will maintain an office in London that will continue to spearhead Two-Can's publishing program in coordination with the U.S. "We want to maintain our relationships with our partners," said Creative president Michael Eleftheriou.

Two-Can, whose products are geared mainly to the institutional market, will join the more retail-oriented children's titles published by Creative's NorthWord imprint. The acquisition "gives us complete coverage of the children's market," Eleftheriou said, adding that Creative plans to cross-market the lists of the two imprints wherever possible.

Eleftheriou said Creative is having a solid year, benefiting from the boom in how-to and home improvement books, core areas for the company. The Two-Can purchase could be the first of several acquisitions by Creative. "We can't grow organically as fast as we want to grow, so we're in an acquisition mode," Eleftheriou told PW. Creative is looking for companies that can enhance its main segments, with publishers in the cooking and arts and crafts fields topping the list.

U.K.—based Taylor & Francis increased its presence in the U.S. publishing market through the acquisition of Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. T&F paid $4.9 million for the Chicago-based Fitzroy, which generated sales of $3.7 million in 2001. T&F will close Fitzroy's Chicago office, which had about 25 employees, and will merge Fitzroy's operations into its Rutledge division's New York City offices. Fitzroy publishes about 25 new titles annually in the arts, humanities and social sciences for the academic and scholarly markets. It has a backlist of 350 titles. George Walsh, president of Fitzroy, said the company's board felt it needed the "worldwide marketing clout" of a larger company if Fitzroy was to continue to grow.

Pearson Education's Prentice Hall college textbook imprint completed two acquisitions within the last several weeks, picking up 29 legal textbooks from Athena Group and 50 art history books from Harry Abrams.

In the deal with Athena, Prentice Hall acquired the Pearson Publications Company (which had no prior connection to Pearson Education) whose assets included 29 legal and paralegal texts as well as supplementary materials and companion Web sites. As a result of the acquisition, Prentice Hall has created the Pearson Legal series, which will include the acquired titles as well as other related materials.

Under its purchase agreement with Abrams, Prentice Hall will retain the Abrams imprint on many of the acquired titles and Abrams will continue to distribute the books to the trade market. Prentice Hall is assuming the editorial and production responsibilities for the Abrams line, which will become part of its humanities and social sciences list. Among the title acquired are H.W. Janson's History of Art, which has four million copies in print.

Other deals that have closed recently include Quad Ventures' purchase of Troll Communications and the sale of the assets of Sleeping Bear Press.