Awaiting the final word on the next publishing saga where reports have mentioned that either Pearson or Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep will be buying Harcourt School Publishers. Nothing confirmed yet online but these are the articles that have appeared to date:
Article posted on The BookSeller.com
June 21, 2007
OFT mulls Pearson’s Harcourt buy
The Office of Fair Trading is considering whether Pearson Education’s $950 million acquisition of Harcour
t Education from Reed Elsevier will result in "a substantial lessening of competition" in the UK’s educational publishing market. The deal, unveiled in May, gives Pearson Education about 23% of the UK schools market, more than former market leaders Oxford University Press and Nelson Thornes.
The OFT, which is also currently considering Woolworth’s acquisition of Bertrams, is asking for representations from interested parties by 4th July. If it finds the deal has created a "relevant merger situation", it will then consider whether the deal could "result in a substantial lessening of competition" in the UK, and if it should be referred to the Competition Commission for further investigation.
Article posted on the London Times
May 4, 2007
Pearson buys Reed text book arm for £425m
Reed Elsevier sells Harcourt’s international text book publishing division and US testing business
Harcourt, the British-owned schools publisher, has fallen into hands of Pearson, the UK’s largest educational publisher, as part of a $950 million cash sale.
Reed Elsevier has sold to Pearson both Harcourt Education International, the Oxford based division with sales both in the UK, South Africa and New Zealand, and Harcourt Assessment, its Texas-based American educational testing business.
Article posted on the Financial Times.com
February 16 2007
Irish tycoon looks at Reed arm
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson 
Barry O’Callaghan, the Irish entrepreneur, is considering an audacious £2bn bid for Reed Elsevier’s educational publishing business, months after his educational software group completed a $5bn (£2.6bn) reverse takeover of Houghton Mifflin, the US school textbook publisher.
Sir Crispin Davis, Reed’s chief executive, yesterday announced it would sell Harcourt Education, after more than a year of falling revenues and profits stemming from errors and contract losses in its exam testing business.
A spokesman for Mr O’Callaghan would not comment, but three people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times he was "very interested" in the potential cost savings and other benefits of combining Harcourt with HM Riverdeep, the vehicle with which he bought the larger Houghton Mifflin.
