Penguin Group

Penguin Group
Parent company Penguin Random House
Founded 1935 (1935)
(as Penguin Books)
Founder Allen Lane[1]
Country of origin United Kingdom
Headquarters location City of Westminster, London
Revenue Increase £1.05 billion (2010)
Official website PenguinGroup.com

The Penguin Group is a trade book publisher, part of Penguin Random House. It is owned by Pearson PLC, the global education and publishing company, and Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate. The new company was created by a merger that was finalized on July 1, 2013, with Bertelsmann owning 53% of the joint venture, and Pearson controlling the remaining 47%.[2]

Penguin Books has its registered office in City of Westminster, London.[3][4]

Its British division is Penguin Books Ltd. Other separate divisions can be found in the United States, Ireland, New Zealand, India, Australia, Canada, China, and South Africa.

History

Penguin Books Ltd. (est. 1935) of the United Kingdom was bought over by Pearson Longman in 1970.

Penguin Group (USA) Inc. was formed in 1996 as a result of the merger between Penguin Books USA and the Putnam Berkley Group. The newly formed company was originally called Penguin Putnam Inc., but, in 2003, it changed its name to Penguin Group (USA) Inc. to reflect the parent Pearson PLC's grouping of all the Penguin companies worldwide under the supervisory umbrella of Pearson's own Penguin Group division.

The different Penguin companies use many imprints, many of which used to be independent publishers.[5] Penguin Group (USA) Inc. also operates its own speaker's bureau that books speaking engagements for many of the publisher's authors. In 2011, the online writing and publishing community Book Country was launched as a subsidiary of Penguin Group USA.[6]

In April 2012, the United States Department of Justice filed United States v. Apple Inc., naming Apple, Penguin, and four other major publishers as defendants. The suit alleged that they conspired to fix prices for e-books and weaken Amazon.com's position in the market in violation of antitrust law.[7] In December 2013, a federal judge approved a settlement of the antitrust claims, in which Penguin and the other publishers paid into a fund that provided credits to customers who had overpaid for books due to the price-fixing.[8]

In October 2012, Pearson entered into talks with rival conglomerate Bertelsmann, over the possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Penguin Group and Random House. The houses were considered two of the Big-Six publishing companies, prior to the merger,[9] which became the Big-Five publishing houses upon completion of the combination. The European Union approved of the Penguin Random House merger on April 5, 2013; Pearson controls 47% of the publisher.

Imprints

Penguin Group imprints include the following:[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Company history, Penguin Random House
  2. ↑ Mark Sweney "Penguin and Random House merger to create biggest book publisher ever seen", The Guardian, 29 October 2012
  3. ↑ "26. What is Penguin Books Limited's company registration number?" Penguin Books. Retrieved on 28 August 2009.
  4. ↑ "Maps." City of Westminster. Retrieved on 28 August 2009.
  5. ↑ "Penguin Group (USA): About Us".
  6. ↑ "What's the Penguin About?". Bookcountry.com. Retrieved 2014-02-27.
  7. ↑ Mui, Ylan Q. and Hayley Tsukayama (April 11, 2012). "Justice Department sues Apple, publishers over e-book prices". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  8. ↑ Molina, Brett (March 25, 2014). "E-book price fixing settlements rolling out". USA Today. Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  9. ↑ Edgecliffe, Andrew (2012-10-26). "Penguin and Random House in deal talks". FT.com. Retrieved 2014-02-27.
  10. ↑ "Penguin: Publishers/Imprints".
  11. ↑ "Avery - Publishers - Penguin Group (USA)". Us.penguingroup.com. 2001-09-04. Retrieved 2014-02-27.
  12. ↑ "Awa Press | Penguin Books New Zealand". Penguin.co.nz. Retrieved 2014-02-27.
  13. ↑ "HPBooks - Publishers - Penguin Group (USA)". Us.penguingroup.com. Retrieved 2014-02-27.
  14. ↑ "The Penguin Press - Publishers - Penguin Group (USA)". Us.penguingroup.com. Retrieved 2014-02-27.
  15. ↑ "Who Are 'The Big Six'?". Fiction Matters. March 5, 2010. Retrieved January 16, 2014.

External links

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