The Merger With Harcourt
On 16 July 2007 Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Harcourt Education, Harcourt Trade and Greenwood-Heinemann divisions of Reed Elsevier for $4 billion. The expanded company would become Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The holding company structure of Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep plc was re-organised with a new holding company based in the Cayman Islands. This company was called Education Media and Publishing Group, EMPG for short.
At the time of the formation of HMH Lucki said "Together, we will be better positioned to meet the changing needs of educators and students in a wider range of subjects, states and school districts".
On 27 November 2008, President Jeremy Dickens told the New York Times that the company had $7bn of debt, which cost the company $500m per annum to service. The money to fund the 2006 Houghton Mifflin and 2007 Reed Elsevier acquisitions was borrowed, and in retrospect Education Media and Publishing Group (Riverdeep) probably overpaid for both companies.
In May 2008, Cengage Learning (formerly Thomson Learning) acquired the assets of the Houghton Mifflin College Division for $750 million.
The combined business was led by Tony Lucki, who had more than thirty years of publishing experience, until his replacement in April 2009 by Barry O'Callaghan.
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