Hachette Livre now own a 25% of a Russian publisher
Hachette Livre now own a 25% (plus a share) interest in Azbooka-Atticu, one of Russia’s larger publishers. The deal actually went down in back in March, but it was only announced this week.
Like any major publisher, Azbooka-Atticu are a conglomeration of various publishing houses and imprints and they produce around 1500 titles a year. They’re based in Moscow, and until the sale 94.6% was owned by A&NN Group, which is controlled by Alexander Mamut. You might recognize the name Mamut; he just formed a group of investors and bought Waterstones.
This isn’t much in the way of ebook news, but the name Azbooka caught my eye. It’s also a brand of Russian (Ukrainian?) ebook readers, though it might not be related.
Curious fact: The word Azbooka iroughly translates as "alphabet".
Comments
igorsk July 7, 2011 um 12:28 am
Yes, "azbuka" is basically the direct translation of the word "alphabet" (az and buki are old names of the first two letters of the cyrillic alphabet). It’s a very common word in the context of books and the publisher has nothing to do with the Ukrainian device maker.