Royal Swets & Zeitlinger sells Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers

[Ylann Schemm <yschemm@nl.swets.com>]

This should be of interest to listserv members

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PRESS RELEASE

Lisse, NL and London, UK
November 6th 2003    

Royal Swets & Zeitlinger sells Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers 

Royal Swets & Zeitlinger announced today the sale of the publishing
business and assets of Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers (SZP) and A. A.
Balkema to the Taylor & Francis Group, the leading specialist publisher of
scientific, academic and professional books and journals. SZP will
continue to operate out of its Lisse-based office for up to the next six
months before relocating to the Leiden area.

Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers was founded in 1916 and publishes English
language journals and books in the specialist areas of engineering,
ophthalmology, neuropsychology as well as the life and social sciences.
SZP has 37 staff, publishes 41 journal titles, 100 new book titles per
year and has a backlist of around 2,000 book titles.

The Taylor and Francis Group was particularly attracted to the high
quality of SZP's publication list which will enhance their existing
scientific and engineering portfolios as well as reinforce the Group's
position in the STM books and journals market segments. The acquisition of
SZP is consistent with Taylor & Francis' strategy of growing its portfolio
of 'must have' information.

Commenting on the acquisition, David Smith, Chief Executive of Taylor &
Francis Group plc said, "The addition of the well regarded SZP portfolio
to our own will further strengthen our position in STM publishing, and the
complementary nature of the publications will enhance our offering
worldwide. The SZP titles will benefit from our international customer
base as well as our traditional and electronic publishing expertise."

Eric van Amerongen, CEO of Royal Swets & Zeitlinger b.v. noted, "As a
leading STM publisher, Taylor and Francis is in an excellent position to
grow the SZP business further. This divestment is in keeping with our
overall strategy to spin off our smaller content businesses (book
publishing, test publishing and document systems) in order to concentrate
purely on outsourcing, distribution and information services in the field
between scientific publishers and their markets."

About the Taylor & Francis Group 

Building on two centuries' experience, Taylor & Francis has grown rapidly
over the last two decades to become a leading international academic
publisher. With offices in London, Brighton, Basingstoke, and Abingdon in
the UK, Stockholm and Oslo on mainland Europe, New York, Boca Raton and
Philadelphia in the USA, Singapore and India, the Group publishes more
than 800 journals and around 2,400 new books each year.

About Royal Swets & Zeitlinger 

Royal Swets & Zeitlinger is an international publishing and information
group, with over 1,200 employees in 23 countries. With headquarters in
Lisse, the Netherlands, Swets & Zeitlinger is a leading print and
electronic service provider of scientific and professional information for
the academic, corporate and governmental markets. Swets & Zeitlinger's
activities are incorporated in the following divisions:  Extenza, Swets
Blackwell (Swets Information Services as of December 2nd, 2003), Swets
Backsets Service, Swets Farrington Document Systems and Swets Test
Publishers.

Media Contact: 
Royal  Swets & Zeitlinger B.V.
Ylann Schemm
External Communications Executive
Tel: + 31 (0) 252 435 388
Email: press@nl.swets.com
website: www.swets.nl 

Taylor & Francis Group 
David Smith, Group Chief Executive
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7583 9855
Anthony Foye, Group Finance Director
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7831 3113

Financial Dynamics
Tim Spratt / Charles Palmer 
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7831 3113