PW: ARCO Now Part of Peterson's

Thomson Learning has acquired the assets of ARCO from IDG Books. ARCO was originally acquired by IDG Books when it purchased the Macmillan general reference group. With the completion of the deal, ARCO is now part of Thomson's Peterson's division, which will retain the ARCO imprint.

The acquisition includes approximately 120 test preparation titles, as well as roughly 180 books in education and career guidance plus general interest titles. ARCO will fill in a gap in the civil service and military test-prep categories, areas in which Peterson's currently d s not publish. Peterson's will expand ARCO's distribution into the school, library and government markets, and also intends to use ARCO's print materials as part of Peterson's online career exploration and test preparation services. Although no one from ARCO is moving to Peterson's, Peterson's intends to expand its staff by about 5% to work on the ARCO line.

With the sale of ARCO, IDG Books said its divestiture program resulting from the Macmillan acquisition is now completed.