Simon & Schuster on the Block
Staff -- Library Journal, 1/19/1998
The Associated Press reports that Viacom Inc. has stated its intentions to sell off Simon & Schuster "to focus on its faster-growing businesses, like MTV and Paramount Pictures." The company allegedly is seeking to divest itself of S. & S.'s educational, professional, and reference publishing units--roughly 60 percent of the publisher's business--while retaining the consumer publishing division, which the report says has had "successful tie-ins with other Viacom products." Though S. & S. has been valued at roughly $4 billion, no asking price has been released. Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Company has been retained to handle the transaction.
