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Hachette Book Group’s (HGB) purchase of Perseus Books Group, in a joint deal with Ingram Content Group, has been called off after the companies failed to reach “agreement on everything necessary to close the transaction”.
It was announced in June that HBG in the US would buy Perseus, which has a London office, with Ingram then buying Perseus’ client services businesses from HBG.
The deal would have seen Perseus Books becoming “a major new publishing division” of HBG, comprising of Perseus’ nine imprints and its partnerships with the Daily Beast, the Economist, the Nation Institute and the Weinstein Company.
Ingram Content Group would have acquired Perseus’s client service businesses, which provide sales, marketing, and distribution to hundreds of independent publishers, and taken over Constellation, Perseus’ digital management and distribution service, which has a deal with Faber Factory.
But yesterday, in a letter to staff seen by Publishers Lunch, Perseus c.e.o. David Steinberger said the deal had been cancelled. He wrote: "The planned transaction involving our company, Hachette and Ingram is not moving forward.
"Despite much effort from all three parties, we could not reach agreement on everything necessary to close the transaction."
Hachette said the deal had been “terminated” and echoed Steinberger’s words on the companies’ failure to reach agreement.
Steinberger said Perseus has had a "strong fiscal 2014" and has "ambitious plans for fiscal 2015 and beyond."