The much-rumored sale of Key Porter Books to H.B. Fenn and Company was confirmed last week when the two companies announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding, under which Fenn will buy a controlling interest in Porter.
Key Porter Books was founded in 1979 by Anna Porter with Key Publishers, and puts out about 100 titles a year. Fenn, which has handled sales for Porter, also acts as the sales and distribution agent for international publishers like Time Warner, Hyperion, and Macmillan UK. It has sales of more than C$120 million.
While Porter will stay on as publisher, president and CEO of Key Porter Books, Jordan Fenn, son of H.B. Fenn and Co. president Harold Fenn, will join the firm as v-p and associate publisher and will become publisher when Porter retires. In recent years at H.B. Fenn, Jordan Fenn created the small in-house imprint Fenn Publishing, which publishes six to 10 hockey-related titles a year. The firms' sales and financial functions will be merged, but Key Porter will retain its downtown Toronto offices.
Over at McClelland & Stewart, new president and publisher Doug Pepper put his stamp on the company last month with a host of personnel changes.
Krystyna Ross, v-p and general manager; Michael Dodick, controller; and Peter Buck, production editor, will be leaving the company. Longtime publishing industry executive Susan Renouf, who has worked at Douglas & McIntyre and Key Porter books (where she was president and editor-in-chief) joins M&S as v-p and associate publisher. Pepper has also lured Chris Bucci from HarperCollins Canada to be senior editor, nonfiction, at the house. They replace Jonathan Webb and Patricia Kennedy, respectively, who have also been let go. Bruce Walsh, who has been acting director of marketing and publicity for the past several months, has been given the position permanently. In addition to her position as publisher (fiction), Ellen Seligman has been promoted to senior vice-president.
