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Bertelsmann
AG Publishers
German Publisher w/American Holdings of 10% of entire market
Jewish financed and operated with David Sarnoff as Chief Financial
Officer
( Hoover's Company Profiles )
COMPANY NAME Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
OVERVIEW Bantam Doubleday Dell (BDD) is a leader in international English-language
book
publishing and one of the largest producers of general-interest consumer
books in North America. The
company is a US subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG (the #3 media company in the
world) and operates as a
division of Bertelsmann Book Group of Germany. BDD has subsidiaries in Australia,
Canada, New
Zealand, and the UK; its books are sold worldwide.
Bertelsmann also owns Gruner+Jahr, which publishes magazines in Europe
and the US and is one of the
world's largest book club operators, with more than 16 million members.
Other activities include
reference and religious books, music, and CD-ROM publishing; paper production;
and printing.
Bantam Doubleday Dell was created in 1986 when Bertelsmann acquired Doubleday
(which owned Dell)
and merged it with Bantam. Doubleday was founded in 1877 by Frank Doubleday
and S. S. McClure and
became one of the best-known names in American publishing. It acquired Dell
in 1976. Dell was founded
in 1921 by George T. Delacorte to publish magazines and comic books. It
moved into paperbacks in
1942. Bantam was founded in 1945 by Ian Ballantine to publish paperbacks;
it moved into hardbacks in
1980. Bertelsmann acquired 51% of Bantam from Italy's Agnelli family (owners
of Fiat) in 1977 and the
other 49% in 1981.
Carl Bertelsmann founded his namesake company in 1835. It was primarily
a publisher of religious works
until WWII, when the Nazis shut it down. Reinhard Mohn, Carl Bertelsmann's
great-great-grandson,
rebuilt the destroyed German plant after returning from an Allied POW camp
in Kansas and was
publishing again by 1948. Today Bertelsmann is working hard to move into
the fast lane of the infobahn.
It paid more than $100 million to launch an online service in Europe with
America Online in 1995.
In 1996 BDD sold Dell Magazines to rival Penny Press and its book club
division, Trumpet, to Scholastic
Inc. (terms of both transactions were undisclosed). The following year BDD
won an order in a Polish
court requiring Amber Publishing of Warsaw to stop publication of "His
Holiness," a best-selling
biography of Pope John Paul II by journalists Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi.
The Polish publishing
company bought the rights to sell the book in Poland, but deleted references
to the Pope's ill health,
Polish anti-Semitism, and criticism of the Catholic Church in Poland. In
1998 the company launched
WaterBrook Press to focus on religious books.
OFFICERS
SVP and Director Human Resources: Robert Sherwood
CFO: Richard Sarnoff
Chairman Emeritus, Bertelsmann: Reinhard Mohn
Chairman and CEO, Bantam Doubleday Dell International: Jack Hoeft
Chairman, President, and CEO, Bertelsmann: Mark Wossner
President and CEO, Bantam Doubleday Dell North America: Erik Engstrom
LOCATION
Headquarters: 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
Web Site: http://www.bdd.com
Phone: 212-354-6500
Fax: 212-782-9071
LOCATION Headquarters: 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036 Web Site: http://www.bdd.com
Phone: 212-354-6500 Fax: 212-782-9071
Bantam Doubleday Dell has offices, partners, and subsidiaries in Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, the
UK, and the US.
Copyright © 1998, Hoovers, Inc., Austin, Texas.
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.., Hoover's Company Profiles,
02-20-1998.
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