News Corp subsidiary Harper Collins is to buy the book publishing (but not magazine) interests of Egmont, across the UK, Germany and Poland.
The imprints will be run in the UK as a children’s book division within Harper Collins. Egmont has the UK rights to Winnie-the-Pooh, Thomas the Tank Engine, Tintin and Mr Men along with Minecraft titles and Michaels Morpugo’s War Horse.
Harper Collins’ growth in children’s books to over £45m has been powered by the popularity of British comedy actor and children’s author David Walliams.
The News Corp subsidiary is the world’s second largest consumer book publisher (after PenguinRandomHouse) based on global revenue, with operations in 17 countries. It owns more than 120 branded imprints, including Harper, William Morrow, HarperCollins Children’s Books, Avon, Harlequin and Christian publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson.
It had $1.75bn of revenue and $253m of EBITDA in the 12 months ended 30 June 2019.
