CRC Buy Means Gains, Realignment at T&F
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 9/29/2003
The combination of organic growth and the purchase of CRC Press in April resulted in an 11.7% increase in revenue at Taylor & Francis, to £73.9 million ($122 million), and an 8.6% gain in pretax profit, to £10.1 million ($16.7 million), for the first half of 2003. The CRC acquisition has also led T&F to reorganize its worldwide organization into separate book and journal divisions, a decision that has led to changes in the U.S.
Under the restructuring, the company's global scientific book publishing activities will be based at CRC's headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., while T&F's New York office becomes the U.S. center for humanities and social and behavioral science book publishing. U.S. journal publishing will be based in Philadelphia. In addition, all back-office activities for the U.S. will move to Boca Raton. Earlier this year, Linda Hollick, publisher of T&F's New York-based Routledge subsidiary, was let go and back-office functions moved to Boca Raton (News, Aug. 4). The company said it expects the U.S. reorganization, which is also meant to increase the amount of materials produced in America, to be completed by the first quarter of 2004.
During the first half of the year, book sales increased 18.4%, to £37.9 million. The increase was due to the inclusion of CRC as well as the early publication of a major textbook in Europe. T&F executives said that despite a "difficult market," they expect solid book sales gains in the second half of 2003. T&F will publish more than 2,300 books this year.
Journals sales rose 5.4% in the first six months of the year, to £36 million, due mainly to the launch of 27 new journals and the addition of 32 journals from CRC. The company also benefited from high renewal rates and the earlier publication of some journals.
