For the past 23 years, the Fisher Company—a leading provider of international mergers and acquisitions services in the print and digital publishing space—has been helping hundreds of clients find their perfect match. The key, company executives say, is about pairing institutional know-how with a human touch.
The client-focused company has an international team of associates with a deep understanding of all areas of publishing, from editorial to marketing to finance, as well as multiple sectors, with executives who have backgrounds in everything from the trade business to academic publishing to the Spanish language market. And, unlike many of the players focused on M&A in the book publishing space, Fisher has an unusually large team based throughout the globe.
“We have strength in depth,” says Des Higgins, a managing director at Fisher alongside company founder, Howard Fisher. The company has an executive team of nine based in, among other locations, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and India. This, Higgins notes, gives Fisher a unique “geographic spread,” with expertise, and a rolodex of contacts, in markets around the world.
As for how the Fisher Company does business, Higgins says there’s a deep understanding that finding the right buyer is about more than just maximizing profits. Books are not widgets, Higgins explained, and sellers often want to find a buyer that will be invested in caring for employees, authors, and the company’s spirit. “We pay a great deal of attention to what we call the ‘soft side’ of the deal,” he says. “In other words, what becomes of the ethos of the company, the legacy, the staff, the authors, and the whole ecosystem.”
For their part, Fisher and Higgins are publishing veterans with decades of experience. Fisher has personally owned and sold five publishing companies and has firsthand experience with the acquisitions process, and Higgins has held leadership positions at Hachette, Bonnier, and Thomson-Reuters and has extensive experience with acquiring companies. Senior director Miriam Warren, who served on the board of directors for Publisher’s Association of the West, spent more than a decade in academic publishing and brings particular knowledge of that space to the fold.
The Fisher Company is in constant contact with major investors in book publishing, understands the mechanics of closing a deal, and has a commitment to professional development and community engagement. And it always leads with a human touch. “Many of the publishing houses we work with were originally startups from entrepreneurs who have grown their company over many decades and are now faced with succession and exiting their business,” the company says. “This is often an emotional journey for them, and a large part of our success is due to our daily communication and availability to discuss situations as they arise. Most entrepreneurial publishers haven’t been through a sale transaction previously and will likely only do one in their life, so they don’t have experience in this realm.”
The majority of the Fisher Company’s clients are small- to medium-sized publishing companies, across the U.S. and North America and the U.K., though the company works with businesses of all sizes. It works mainly with English-language clients but has Spanish-language clients as well and experience in both trade and academic publishing, in categories including fiction, nonfiction, children's, and educational publishing. In addition to traditional book publishers, the company has worked with magazines, software companies, and clients in the broader media industry landscape.
Over time, the Fisher Company has expanded into the international market, as has its team; the company’s contact base now represents thousands of industry professionals across the globe, and it’s in regular communication with qualified investors and potential buyers who are actively looking to grow their acquisitions portfolios. The company recently added a director in Australia and an associate in Mexico to its team. Its recent notable transactions include The Stable acquisition of Trafalgar Square Books, in January 2025; the Rizzoli International Publications acquisition of Chelsea Green Publishing, in April 2024; the Lerner Publishing Group acquisition of Sundance Newbridge, in September 2024; and the Savvas Learning Company acquisition of Rubicon Publishing.
Members of the Fisher Company team attend all major publishing trade fairs, including those in London, Bologna, Frankfurt, and Sharjah, as well as many regional and niche conferences. Warren also routinely works with independent companies who may be hesitant to enter the acquisitions process and need additional guidance and support. As she explains, while the company has grown over the years, the focus has not shifted. As the Fisher Company expands and grows, it remains committed to one goal. “We want to find the best match for our clients, regardless of who we are representing,” the company says.
