Reed Elsevier, Thomson agree to buy Harcourt

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

According to this morning's (Friday, October 27th) Wall Street Journal, a
joint offer from two competitors, Reed Elsevier and the Thomson
Corporation, emerged as winner in the acquistion of Harcourt General. The
offering price is $4.45 billion in cash plus assumption of a $1.2 billion
debt.  Under the offer, it seems that Reed Elsevier would keep the STM
business and possibly the elementary and high school textbook operations.  
Thomson would acquire the college textbook business and the
corporate/professional-service segment.  Some regulatory agency review
will be required.

For readers of the liblicense-l list, the connection is that Reed Elsevier
brings ScienceDirect (1100 journal titles) to the library marketplace,
while Academic Press (a division of Harcourt) delivers about 175 titles
plus 60 or more in its health science series, through the online e-journal
product called IDEAL.

Ann Okerson
Yale University Library