Amazon Publishing to Acquire Marshall Cavendish US Children’s Books Titles

SEATTLE & TARRYTOWN, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Marshall Cavendish, one of the world’s leading educational and consumer book publishers and classroom digital solutions providers, today announced that Amazon has signed a deal to acquire over 450 titles of its US Children’s trade books business, Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books (MCCB).

“We’re excited to acquire the Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books titles and expand our publishing business in this area”

The list from Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books has been nominated for more than 150 industry awards and includes a diverse range of titles including “The Night Before Christmas” illustrated by Gennady Spirin, “Three Little Tamales” by Eric A. Kimmel, “Chalk” by Bill Thomson and “Yellow Star” by Jennifer Roy, as well as the National Book Award finalist “My Name is Not Easy” by Debby Dahl Edwardson. The acquisition creates the foundation for Amazon Publishing to further expand into picture books, chapter books and Young Adult novels.

“We’re excited to acquire the Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books titles and expand our publishing business in this area,” said Jeff Belle, Vice President, Amazon Publishing. “We believe the children’s book market segment presents a unique opportunity to innovate in both print and digital formats. And since many of these titles are not readily available as eBooks, we see a chance to connect a terrific group of authors and illustrators with more readers. We also see the potential for similar deals across other categories in the future.”

“Under the guidance of Margery Cuyler, the Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books team has done an incredible job of building a contemporary and beautifully presented list of books,” said Laurence Kirshbaum, Vice President and Publisher, Amazon Publishing, East Coast Group. “We look forward to working with these respected authors and illustrators. We will continue to publish these books in their handsome print editions and we think customers will love reading these books — most of them never available before digitally — with their families, using the brilliant color touchscreen on the Kindle Fire.”

Lee Fei Chen, Group Publisher & Head of Publishing Group at Marshall Cavendish Corporation said, “We would like to thank all the MCCB authors and illustrators for their contributions over the years; many of them have worked with us since the commencement of this business in 2003. The numerous awards and recognition that the list has garnered is a standing testament to the creativity and capabilities of the team.” She further added, “Our sale will allow Marshall Cavendish to continue to focus on our core K-12 textbook and assessment books business in the United States, and growing our school education publishing businesses worldwide.”

Until the deal is closed, all orders from retailers and libraries should continue to go to the existing MCCB sales teams. Amazon will publish the acquired titles under an imprint of Amazon’s New York publishing unit.

Marshall Cavendish was advised by Robin Warner, Atwood Capital Partners, a globally-focused investment bank active in the information, media, technology and communications industries.

Amazon Publishing is the publishing arm of Amazon, and is made up of six imprints: AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Powered by Amazon, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, 47North, as well as the New York-based division under which MCCB will be housed. For more information about imprints of Amazon Publishing, visit www.amazon.com/amazonpublishing. Amazon Publishing is a brand used by Amazon Content Services LLC.

About Marshall Cavendish

Marshall Cavendish is a leading education publisher. In the United States, Marshall Cavendish’s highly successful Singapore-based K-5 Math Program, Math in Focus: The Singapore Approach is distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The Company has educational publishing operations in the US, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore and sells its education solutions to Ministries of Education worldwide in more than 50 countries. Marshall Cavendish is a member of Times Publishing Limited. For more information please visit: www.marshallcavendish.com

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes — still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch, with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon’s new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.