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Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Media group |
Founded | 1878 Copenhagen, Denmark |
Founder | Egmont H. Petersen |
Headquarters | , Denmark |
Key people | Steffen Kragh (President & CEO) Steen Riisgaard (Chairman) |
Products | Books, Magazines, Film, Cinemas, Interactive media, Television |
Revenue | €2,073 million [1] (2021) |
€256 million [1] (2021) | |
€224 million [1] (2021) | |
Total assets | €2,500 million [1] (2021) |
Total equity | €1,098 million [1] (2021) |
Number of employees | 5,376 [1] (2021) |
Website | www |
The Egmont Group (officially Egmont International Holding A/S; known as Gutenberghus Group until 1992) is a Danish media corporation founded and rooted in Copenhagen, Denmark. The business area of Egmont has traditionally been magazine publishing, but has over the years evolved to comprise mass media generally.
The Egmont Group was founded by Egmont Harald Petersen in 1878, [2] as a one-man printing business, but soon became a magazine business. It was originally called "P. Petersen, Printers", named after Petersen's mother, as he was still too young at the time to register his own company. The company was renamed Gutenberghus in 1914 (after the famous inventor of the printing press), a name it kept until 1992.
In 1948, Gutenberghus, looking for new opportunities, sent its editor Dan Folke to Walt Disney Productions, and he managed to acquire a license for publishing comic magazines in Scandinavia. In 1948, the company started to publish a Donald Duck comic magazine in Sweden (as Kalle Anka & C:o ) and Norway (as Donald Duck & C:o), in 1949 also in Denmark (as Anders And & C:o). This magazine features all the well known Disney characters, from Mickey Mouse to Little Hiawatha under license from Disney.
With the acquisition in 1963, of the Danish publisher Aschehoug, Egmont also entered the book market. From the late 1980s the Egmont Group used the close connection with Disney to expand their Scandinavian focus to a global focus, being the producer of Disney for the new Eastern European market, as well as for the Chinese market. In 1991, Egmont was co-founder of the Norwegian television channel TV 2, before buying it outright in 2012.
In 1992, Egmont bought Nordisk Film. In 1997, Egmont acquired Semic Press. In 1998, Egmont acquired the children's book catalogue of Reed Elsevier. [3] In 2008, they acquired the minority stake in magazine publisher Hjemmet Mortensen which they did not already hold, from Orkla ASA. [4]
Egmont has a number of local country branches: Australia, Bulgaria (Egmont Bulgaria), China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany (Egmont Ehapa), Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom.
Egmont is one of Scandinavia's leading media groups producing weeklies, magazines, comics, books, educational materials, activity products, movies and TV programs. The media group also operates movie theatres and TV stations, and the Egmont name is behind interactive games, game consoles, music and a wide range of digital media. Egmont publishes media in more than 30 countries, has over 5,300 employees and generated revenue amounting to over €2 billion in 2021. [1]
Egmont acquired Forma Publishing Group in October 2014. [5] In January 2015, the company shut down its American publishing division. [6]
On 1 May 2020, Egmont completed the sale of three of its publishers (Egmont Books UK, Egmont Poland, and Schneiderbuch Germany) to HarperCollins. [7]
Egmont UK publishes books and magazines for children in the United Kingdom. It is the largest dedicated children's publisher in the UK. The Head Office is in London. In May 2020, the books division of Egmont UK was sold to HarperCollins. The new imprint changed its name to Farshore in February 2021.
In 1998, Reed Elsevier sold Dean & Son, World Distributors, and the children's divisions of Heinemann, Methuen, Hamlyn and Mammoth to the Egmont Group. [3] [8]
Egmont UK's book list includes fiction novels, illustrated picture books, pop-up and novelty books, fantasy adventures, annuals, colouring, activity and sticker books as well and Egmont's own Reading Ladder (for five- to nine-year-olds). Egmont also has a number of young adult fiction works, award-winners, classics and epic tales.
The Fiction list includes work from such award-winning authors as Andy Stanton, Jim Smith, Michael Morpurgo, Lemony Snicket, Jamila Gavin and David Levithan. Electric Monkey is Egmont's dedicated Young Adult imprint and authors published include Elizabeth Acevedo, Michael Grant, Andrew A. Smith, Tahereh Mafi and Holly Jackson.
The Picture Book list includes work from authors such as Julia Donaldson, Kristina Stephenson, Michael Morpurgo and John Dougherty (author). Classic stories published by Egmont UK include The Velveteen Rabbit, The Little Prince and The Wind in the Willows. Authors on the non-fiction Red Shed imprint include Chris Packham and Laura Coryton.
Illustrators who are published by Egmont include Helen Oxenbury, Shirley Hughes, Jim Field, Rob Biddulph, Steven Lenton, Alex T. Smith and Colin and Jacqui Hawkins.
The Brands & Licensing books list includes titles from the following brands:
Egmont offers a range of Personalised books through their website.
The Dean imprint (Dean & Son) offers consumer-led, bespoke publishing direct to retailers.
In 1991, Egmont purchased the Fleetway arm of IPC Media in the UK from a company owned by Robert Maxwell, and merged it with their existing comics publishing division, London Editions, and thus became Britain's largest comic book publisher. The resultant company, Fleetway Editions, was absorbed into the main Egmont brand by 2000, having largely divested itself of its original portfolio (such as 2000 AD ) and continued with only reprint and licensed material titles (e.g. Sonic The Comic ). The Fleetway archive comprises those comics characters first published by IPC subsidiaries on or after 1 January 1970, together with 26 specifically named characters first published in Buster before that date. [9] In August 2016, The IPC/Fleetway library was sold to Rebellion Developments, who had previously acquired 2000 AD. [10] [11]
Egmont Magazines currently publish titles including Toxic , Thomas and Friends , Disney Princess , Frozen , Minecraft , and Go Girl.
Egmont has a charitable wing. The founder's last will and testament paved the way for Egmont's charitable work to support social, cultural and scientific causes. As a foundation, Egmont helps improve children's and young people's quality of life, donating more than 235 million Euros to social, cultural and health projects since 1920.[ citation needed ]
Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring characters created by the Walt Disney Company, including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck.
A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper. As of 2014, the three longest-running comics of all time were all British.
Crisis was a British comic anthology published by Fleetway Publications from 17 September 1988 to October 1991, initially fortnightly and later monthly. Designed to appeal to older readers than other Fleetway titles in order to take advantage of a boom in interest in 'adult' comics, Crisis featured overtly political and complex stories; one issue was even produced in conjunction with Amnesty International.
Rebellion Developments Limited is a British video game developer based in Oxford, England. Founded by Jason and Chris Kingsley in December 1992, the company is best known for its Sniper Elite series and multiple games in the Alien vs. Predator series. Sister company Rebellion Publishing has published comic books since 2000, when it purchased 2000 AD, the publisher of characters such as Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.
The Amalgamated Press (AP) was a British newspaper and magazine publishing company founded by journalist and entrepreneur Alfred Harmsworth (1865–1922) in 1901, gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner. At one point the largest publishing company in the world, AP employed writers such as Arthur Mee, John Alexander Hammerton, Edwy Searles Brooks, and Charles Hamilton. Its subsidiary, the Educational Book Company, published The Harmsworth Self-Educator, The Children's Encyclopædia, and Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia. The company's newspapers included the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, The Evening News, The Observer, and The Times. At its height, AP published over 70 magazines and operated three large printing works and paper mills in South London.
TI Media Ltd. was a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year. Most of its titles now belong to Future plc.
Byron Erickson is an American editor and writer in the comic book industry. He works at Egmont on Disney comic books, and was formerly Don Rosa's editor.
Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW), formerly known as The Disney Publishing Group and Buena Vista Publishing Group, is the publishing subsidiary of Disney Experiences, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Its imprints include Disney Editions, Disney Press, Kingswell, Freeform, and Hyperion Books for Children. It has creative centers in Glendale, California, and Milan, Italy.
Fleetway Publications was a magazine publishing company based in London.
Richard Burton is a British comic publisher and editor who had a lengthy career at IPC Magazines. While an assistant editor at 2000 AD, he became known to readers as Tharg the Mighty's bumbling assistant Burt, who appeared in a number of strips with him. Earlier in his career, Burton published the popular fanzine Comic Media News, and was a co-founder of the Eagle Awards.
Kalle Anka & C:o is a Swedish weekly Disney comics magazine, published by Egmont. The 52-page comic, launched in September 1948, is the overall best-selling Swedish comic magazine. In the early years, the comic printed translated stories from the United States, including Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, Four Color and other Dell Comics Disney titles. As Disney comics production waned in the United States in the 1960s, Kalle Anka began printing more European-produced content, from Scandinavia and Italy. Now, Kalle Anka & C:o and its Scandinavian sister editions Anders And & Co. (Denmark) and Donald Duck & Co (Norway) are identical, apart from the language.
Egmont Manga is one of the largest publishers of manga in Germany. It was founded in 2000 as a daughter company of Egmont Ehapa, after the manga boom in Germany became apparent around the turn of the millennium. Since 2003, EMA has been part of Egmont vgs in Cologne.
Odhams Press was a British publishing company, operating from 1920 to 1968. Originally a magazine publisher, Odhams later expanded into book publishing and then children's comics. The company was acquired by Fleetway Publications in 1961 and then IPC Magazines in 1963. In its final incarnation, Odhams was known for its Power Comics line of titles, notable for publishing reprints of American Marvel Comics superheroes.
Hemmets Journal is a Swedish family magazine published by Egmont. It was the second largest weekly magazine in Sweden in 2009.
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World Distributors was a British publisher and distributor of magazines and comic books. The company was known for repackaging American comics and producing comic book annuals based on licensed properties. For a period, the company was the lone distributor of American comics in the UK. Pembertons was owned and operated by the brothers Alfred, John, and Sydney Pemberton, originally based in Manchester.
City Magazines was a British publisher of weekly comics and men's magazines that operated from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. The company's most notable publications were comics magazines based on licensed television properties, including TV Century 21 and Lady Penelope, both of which featured comics based on Gerry Anderson's Century 21 Productions Supermarionation shows.
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Cursitor Doom is a fictional British comic book character who debuted in a self-titled comic strip in the 15 March 1969 issue of the anthology Smash!, published by IPC Magazines. Created by Ken Mennell, Cursitor Doom is a powerful mystic who protects Earth from supernatural threats.