History
Penguin Books Ltd. (est. 1935) of the United Kingdom was bought over by Pearson Longman in 1970.
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. was formed in 1996 as a result of the merger between Penguin Books USA and the Putnam Berkley Group. The newly formed company was originally called Penguin Putnam Inc., but in 2003 changed its name to Penguin Group (USA) Inc. to reflect the parent Pearson PLC's grouping of all the Penguin companies worldwide under the supervisory umbrella of Pearson's own Penguin Group division.
The different Penguin companies use many imprints, many of which used to be independent publishers. Penguin Group (USA) Inc. also operates its own speaker's bureau that books speaking engagements for many of the publisher's authors.
In October 2012, Pearson entered into talks with rival conglomerate Bertelsmann, over the possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Penguin Group and Random House. The houses are considered two of the "Big Six" publishing companies.
The merged publisher would be known as "Penguin Random House", with Bertelsmann owning 53% of the joint, and Pearson controlling 47%.
Read more about this topic: Penguin Group
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