Hachette Book Group (HBG), the American branch of Lagardère Publishing, announced on Thursday, November 21, that it had finalized the acquisition of 100% of Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. from Barnes & Noble, the leading bookstore chain in the United States. United, also diversified in publishing. For HBG, this is the most important purchase across the Atlantic since that of Workman Publishing in 2021.
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Sterling Publishing brings together a very wide variety of publishing segments, fiction and non-fiction with the brands Union Square & Co, Puzzleright Press, Sterling Ethos and Spark Notes, but also literature intended for young people, with Knock Knock and Em & Friends. The group publishes children's book author and illustrator Mo Willems – including the album series Elephant and Piggie has become a great classic for very young readers – her colleague Dusti Bowling, but also successful authors for teenagers like Melissa Blair.
The house also publishes the best-sellers of crime and romance author LS Stratton as well as cooking recipe books by Caroline Chambers and Dan Pelosi. In total, Sterling Publishing has a catalog of 13,000 titles and publishes nearly 350 new releases each year.
Third largest general publishing group in the world
Barnes & Nobles acquired Sterling in 2003 and renamed it Union Square & Co in January 2022. Barnes & Nobles CEO James Daunt had chosen Emily Meehan to lead this subsidiary a year earlier, giving her for a roadmap to reinventing the publishing program. The boss of Sterling will remain in place, and Hachette Livre also specifies that “all personnel, editorial assets and brands of Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. are transferred to Hachette Book Group”. Without giving the amount of the redemption.
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Claiming its place as the world's third general publishing group, Lagardère Publishing, now part of Vincent Bolloré, generates two thirds of its turnover abroad, “including around 30% in the United States and Canada”, specifies the group. It is also the fourth largest consumer publisher in the United States, and its activities showed growth of 8% during the first half of 2024.