A little more than a month after it announced it had reached an agreement to acquire Workman Publishing, Hachette Book Group has completed the deal.
“This is a significant and exciting milestone for Hachette Book Group, as we welcome an extraordinary publisher to HBG,” CEO Michael Pietsch said in a statement. “We have deep admiration for Workman’s publishing, its people, its authors and illustrators, its books, its commitment to backlist, and its culture.”
As previously announced, Workman Publishing will be HBG’s eighth publishing group, comprising the imprints Workman, Algonquin, Algonquin Young Readers, Artisan, Storey Publishing, and Timber Press. Dan Reynolds, who had been Workman CEO, will head the new group as senior v-p and publisher. He will report to Pietsch and join HBG’s executive management board.
The conclusion of the deal ends the Workman family’s ownership of one of the industry’s best-known and most distinct independent publishers. The company was founded in 1968 by Peter Workman and had been led by his wife, Carolan, since Peter’s death in 2013. In 2020, sales reached $134 million; by that time, under the direction of Workman family, the publisher had built a backlist of about 3,500 titles.
The acquisition, for $240 million, was HBG’s sixth in the last eight years as the company solidified its position as the country's fourth largest trade publisher. HBG will move into the third spot after Penguin Random House's acquisition of Simon & Schuster is completed.
