Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | CD-ROM software Educational video game |
Founded | 1995 (Riverdeep Interactive Learning Limited) |
Headquarters | |
Parent | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
Website | hmhco |
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Learning Technology, originally started as Riverdeep Interactive Learning, is a publishing house for educational online and CD-ROM products based in San Francisco, Boston and Dublin, Ireland. Founded in 1995, Riverdeep was principally the creation of the Irish ex-investment banker Barry O'Callaghan. O'Callaghan was Riverdeep's CEO and controlling shareholder. [1] Riverdeep also acquired the companies Broderbund, The Learning Company and Edmark, and became a distributor for said companies.
In October 2002, Riverdeep became a private entity when their stock price plummeted below $2 on NASDAQ. [2]
On September 20, 2004, Riverdeep moved its Novato office to 100 Pine Street in San Francisco.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt officially became a publicly traded company on November 14, 2013, with common shares of stock listed on the NASDAQ exchange. [3]
As of 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is offering the Adventure Workshop brand (originally used for titles published by or acquired by Riverdeep) as a licensing opportunity on its website.
On December 22, 2006, HM Rivergroup PLC announced the completed acquisition of Houghton Mifflin Holding Company, Inc. and Riverdeep Holdings, Limited. Following the completion of transactions, HM Rivergroup PLC would change its name to Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group PLC. [4] Riverdeep paid $1.75 billion in cash and assumed $1.61 billion in debt from the private investment firms Thomas H. Lee Partners, Bain Capital Partners and The Blackstone Group. [5] Tony Lucki, a former non-executive director of Riverdeep, would remain in his position as Houghton Mifflin's chief executive officer. HM Rivergroup indicated it wanted to capitalize on the "convergence of print and digital education platforms."
In July 2007, Reed Elsevier (an information and publishing group) offloaded Harcourt US Schools Education business to Houghton Mifflin, Inc. for $4.0 billion, with $3.7 billion payable in cash and $0.3 billion payable in common stock of Houghton Mifflin, Inc. [6]
Houghton Mifflin was privately held. Existing investors put up $23 million of equity financing to help to meet the $3.7 billion cash requirement for the purchase. Reed took a $300 million stake in Houghton Mifflin, Inc., which left it with 11.8 per cent of the common stock in the enlarged company. [7]
The combined business became known as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), and a new holding company, EMPG, was created. The Riverdeep name is no longer used by HMH.
RELX plc is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; decision-making tools; and organise exhibitions. It operates in 40 countries and serves customers in over 180 nations. It was previously known as Reed Elsevier, and came into being in 1993 as a result of the merger of Reed International, a British trade book and magazine publisher, and Elsevier, a Netherlands-based scientific publisher.
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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, and reference works. The company is based in the Boston Financial District. It was formerly known as Houghton Mifflin Company, but it changed its name following the 2007 acquisition of Harcourt Publishing. Prior to March 2010, it was a subsidiary of Education Media and Publishing Group Limited, an Irish-owned holding company registered in the Cayman Islands and formerly known as Riverdeep. In 2022, it was acquired by Veritas Capital, a New York-based private-equity firm.
Harcourt was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida, and was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1982, it was based in New York City.
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Barry O'Callaghan is an Irish business executive and financier. He is the Chairman and CEO of AKLO Capital and the former CEO of HMH. He grew the small educational software company Riverdeep into the largest K-12 publishing company in the American education system through a series of acquisitions.
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Education Media and Publishing Group, more commonly known as EMPG, is a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands with no operating subsidiaries. It also has a minority interest in an affiliate that focuses on markets outside the US called EMPGI. It was the effective successor to the Ireland-based Riverdeep company. It collapsed during the post-2008 Irish economic downturn following the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Prior to March 2010, EMPG owned the legacy Riverdeep and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt businesses, which it acquired in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
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