CQ Press for Sale; Macmillan Makes Text Buy

-- Publishers Weekly, 1/8/2008 6:57:00 AM

The Times Publishing Co., parent of Congressional Quarterly Inc. and the St. Petersburg Times, has put CQ’s book publishing arm, CQ Press, up for sale. The unit publishes about 100 titles annually. Times corporate v-p Andrew Corty said the company decided to divest CQ Press to permit it to focus its on the newspaper and CQ’s publications division.

CQ Press, under the direction of publisher John Jenkins, publishes for the library, college and professional markets. Its college unit specializes in texts on political science and mass communications, while the reference group had shifted much of its content to online delivery, which now makes up about two-thirds of that unit’s sales. The publisher has about 135 employees.

The New York investment banking firm, Jordan Edmiston, has been hired to handle the sale.  

In a separatedeal, Macmillan has acquired the custom textbook publisher Hayden-McNeil. Founded in 1992. H-M has 30 employees and specializes in custom college texts in science. The company will become part of Macmillan’s college publishing group.