Cengage Group - Wikipedia
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Cengage
American educational products company
Cengage
Founded
2007
; 19 years ago
2007
Headquarters location
Boston
, Massachusetts, United States
Key people
Michael Hansen
(CEO)
Publication types
Educational content, technology, and services
Imprints
Nelson
ed2go
Gale
Milady
Cengage MindTap
National Geographic Learning
Thorndike Press
Infosec
Ready To Hire
Revenue
US$
1.5 billion
(2023)
No.
of employees
3,800 (2026)
Official website
cengagegroup
.com
Cengage Group
is an American educational content, technology, and services company. Its headquarters is located in
Independence, Kentucky
History
edit
International Thomson Publishing
entered the publishing business by buying Wadsworth Publishing in 1979. In 1981 International Thomson purchased the publishing operations of
Litton Industries
, including Van Nostrand Reinhold and Delmar.
International Thomson acquired reference publisher
Gale Research
in 1985.
International Thomson acquired South-Western Publishing from
SFN
in 1986.
In 1992, Thomson acquired Course Technology.
In 1995, Thomson acquired educational reference publisher
Peterson's
In 1997, Van Nostrand Reinhold was sold to
John Wiley & Sons
In 2000, Thomson Learning was created out of a restructuring of International Thomson Publishing.
Later that year Thomson acquired the higher education title of
Harcourt
from
Reed Elsevier
and the test prep publisher Arco from
IDG Books
In 2002, Wadsworth acquired F.E. Peacock Publishers.
10
It was announced on October 25, 2006, that Thomson Learning would be offered for sale by the
Thomson Corporation
, with an estimated value of up to US$5 billion.
11
12
The company was bought by a private equity consortium consisting of
Apax Partners
and
OMERS Capital Partners
for US$7.75 billion, and the name was changed to Cengage Learning on July 24, 2007.
13
In 2007, Cengage Learning sold Peterson's to
Nelnet
14
In 2011, Cengage Learning acquired the National Geographic Society's school publishing unit, and combined this school business with the Global
ELT
business to create and launch the National Geographic Learning brand. The global brand combined the former Cengage Learning ELT and National Geographic School Publishing imprints and sub-brands under one unified identity.
15
In September 2013, David Shaffer retired as chairman of the company.
16
He had previously been executive vice president of The Thomson Corporation from 2005 to 2006, and then President and CEO of both Thomson Publishing International and Thomson Learning.
17
The company had acquired significant debt during its initial buyout and subsequent acquisitions, and experienced declining revenues as the market for paper textbooks contracted. Cengage Learning filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 on July 2, 2013.
13
18
Cengage Learning emerged from bankruptcy on April 1, 2014, eliminating approximately $4 billion of its funded debt and securing $1.75 billion in exit financing. Post-bankruptcy, the company decided to focus on developing digital study guides and other educational supplements, as well as hard-copy textbooks. The company moved its headquarters from
Stamford, Connecticut
, to Boston.
19
In January 2015, they announced expansion of their LearnLaunch Accelerator program, which provides seed funding and intensive coaching to promising startups, to the
University of Chihuahua
in Mexico.
20
21
In November 2016, Cengage Learning rebranded as simply Cengage.
citation needed
In May 2019, Cengage announced its potential merger with another major publisher,
McGraw-Hill Education
, thereby creating a duopoly with Pearson in the market and would have used McGraw-Hill as the merged corporate name with Michael Hansen as CEO.
22
23
It is estimated
Cengage has 24% of the market while McGraw-Hill has 21%, Pearson, the current market leader, has about 40 percent of the market and Wiley has about 7 percent.
24
The merger was called off on May 1, 2020.
25
In August 2021, Cengage rebranded as Cengage Group.
citation needed
Acquisitions
edit
In addition to organic growth, Cengage has expanded through acquisitions within the publishing industry. Notable acquisitions include:
Date of acquisition announced
Asset acquired
Industry
March 1, 2004
Education to Go
26
Online continuing education courses
May 16, 2008
PAL Publications
27
Professional reference series
June 2, 2008
Houghton Mifflin College Division
27
Publishing for
2-
and
4-year
colleges
July 17, 2008
Gatlin Education Services
28
Web-based training
for education providers
December 16, 2008
HighBeam Research
29
Paid search engine of newspapers and magazines
August 1, 2011
National Geographic School Publishing
15
Publishing for K-12 schools and English language programs
September 2015
Learning Objects, Inc
Learning management systems and adaptive education tools
October 2015
Pathbrite, Inc
ePortfolio services for learning, reflection, and career advancement
September 2016
WebAssign
30
Online instructional application for faculty and students
March 2022
InfoSec Institute
31
Cybersecurity
training
January 2025
Visible Body
Interactive 3D computer generated models of anatomy and physiology
February 2025
Nanovis
32
Products
edit
Cengage Unlimited
edit
On December 5, 2017, Cengage announced Cengage Unlimited, a subscription service that allows students to pay for access to the company's entire digital higher education catalog by the semester or year, rather than buying individual textbooks.
33
This service became available during summer 2018, and was reported to be "in line with expectations" with its initial sales goal.
34
The
University of Missouri
is the first university to offer this plan to all students, effective January 2019.
35
Brands/imprints
edit
The company's product lines include Cengage MindTap, Gale, Nelson, National Geographic Learning, Big Ideas Learning, Thorndike Press, ed2go, Infosec, Ready to Hire and Milady.
Since 2015, South-Western products have been branded as Cengage Learning.
36
Cengage Unlimited, a SaaS solution, launched on August 1, 2018.
37
Rankings
edit
In 2024, based on its 2015 revenues,
Publishers Weekly
ranked the company 15 out of 47 publishers worldwide, based on revenues of $1,503,000,000 (US). The list includes both trade and educational publishers.
38
See also
edit
Books in the United States
References
edit
Mehegan, David (January 26, 2002). "Little, Brown Shrinking Again".
Boston Globe
(3rd ed.). Boston, Mass. pp. –1.
ISSN
0743-1791
ProQuest
405447754
"Sale to International Thomson of Publisher Is Set for $66 Million".
Wall Street Journal
. New York, N.Y. May 8, 1985. p. 1.
ISSN
0099-9660
ProQuest
397970242
Landro, Laura (October 15, 1986). "SFN to Sell Unit to Time For $520 Million – Sale of Another Subsidiary To a Canadian Concern Is Set for $270 Million".
Wall Street Journal
. New York, N.Y. p. 1.
ISSN
0099-9660
ProQuest
397963634
Diamond, Howard (November 24, 1992). "Thomson Acquires Course Technology, Inc".
Business Wire
. New York, N.Y. p. 1.
ProQuest
447043731
"Thomson acquires Peterson's Guides"
Publishers Weekly
. October 30, 1995
. Retrieved
December 5,
2019
Chen, David W. (October 10, 1997).
"Metro Business; John Wiley Acquires A Trade Book Unit"
The New York Times
ISSN
0362-4331
. Retrieved
October 20,
2019
"PW: Thomson Learning Adapts to Market"
PublishersWeekly.com
"The Thomson Corporation to Acquire Select Harcourt Business Units From Reed Elsevier".
Business Wire
. New York, N.Y. October 27, 2000. p. 1.
ProQuest
445856898
"Thomson Learning Acquires ARCO Imprint from IDGB; Peterson's to Provide Consumers a Singular Resource for a Wide Range of Test-Prep Materials and Information".
Business Wire
. New York, N.Y. June 12, 2000. p. 1.
ProQuest
445835057
"Wadsworth buys F.E. Peacock Publishers Inc"
San Francisco Business Times
. Retrieved
November 21,
2020
Thomas, Helen (October 25, 2006)
Thomson to put learning unit on the block.
FT Alphaville. Financial Times.
(October 25, 2006)
Thomson to sell education units
Archived
June 5, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
Boston.com
"Cengage Learning Files for Bankruptcy"
New York Times
. July 2, 2013.
Archived
from the original on November 8, 2014
. Retrieved
November 7,
2014
"Nelnet Acquires Peterson's"
(Press release). Nelnet. July 27, 2006. Archived from
the original
on July 14, 2011
. Retrieved
September 5,
2007
Jinks, Beth (June 24, 2011)
Apax's Cengage Buying National Geographic's School Publisher
Archived
July 31, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine
Bloomberg.com
Edgecliffe-Johnson, Andrew (July 6, 2013)
Debt-laden Cengage in hunt for new chief
Archived
July 14, 2012, at the
Wayback Machine
The Financial Times
Executive Profile – David H. Shaffer
bloomberg.com
Howard, Jennifer (July 3, 2013)
Publisher's Bankruptcy Filing Comes as Market for Print Textbooks Shrinks
Archived
May 12, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
The Chronicle of Higher Education
"Textbook publisher quits Stamford for Boston"
Associated Press News
. April 15, 2014
. Retrieved
November 11,
2019
Borchers, Callum (April 1, 2014)
Cengage exits bankruptcy, focuses on e-books in Boston
Archived
September 15, 2014, at the
Wayback Machine
bostonglobe.com
Shulman, Eden (Feb 12, 2015)
"Boston ed-tech firm Cengage Learning announces the expansion of LearnLaunch to Latin America"
Archived
from the original on May 2, 2015
. Retrieved
June 4,
2015
BetaBoston –
Boston Globe
McKenzie, Lindsay (May 2, 2019).
"Rival Publishers Join Forces"
insidehighered.com
. Retrieved
June 6,
2019
"McGraw-Hill, Cengage Agree to Merge"
Publishers Weekly
. Retrieved
July 8,
2019
"College textbook merger raises 'serious concern' among U.S. lawmakers"
Reuters
. March 11, 2020
. Retrieved
March 11,
2020
"McGraw-Hill, Cengage Jointly Agree to Terminate Planned Merger"
Bloomberg
. May 4, 2020.
MacFadyen, Ken (June 9, 2008)
Thomson Course Technology Acquires Education To Go To Expand Continuing Education Offerings
Archived
January 29, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine
MacFadyen, Ken (June 9, 2008)
Cengage Buys Houghton Mifflin's College Unit
Archived
June 5, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
themiddlemarket.com
Cengage Learning Acquired Gatlin Education Services. Was this a good decision? owler.com
permanent dead link
Polanka, Sue (Dec 16, 2008)
Archived
June 5, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
No Shelf Required – Wright State University Libraries
"Cengage Acquires WebAssign, Strengthening Market Position in Science, Technology and Math"
Cengage
. September 27, 2016.
Archived
from the original on November 16, 2016
. Retrieved
November 15,
2016
"Cengage Group Completes Acquisition of Infosec"
Infosec
. March 2, 2022
. Retrieved
August 22,
2022
Whooley, Sean (February 12, 2025).
"Medtronic acquires nanotech from Nanovis for interbody fusion systems"
MassDevice
. Retrieved
November 6,
2025
"Boston publisher launches a Netflix for textbooks – The Boston Globe"
BostonGlobe.com
McKenzie, Lindsay (November 8, 2018).
"Promising Early Sales for Cengage Unlimited"
. Inside Higher Ed
. Retrieved
November 20,
2018
"University of Missouri System Chooses Cengage Unlimited Subscriptions to Save Students Money on Course Materials"
. Business Insider. November 16, 2018
. Retrieved
November 20,
2018
"There's a new way to find South-Western titles"
Archived
April 8, 2017, at the
Wayback Machine
, Cengage Learning. Retrieved April 8, 2017.
(August 4, 2018)
eLearning Inside News: Cengage
Milliot, Jim (November 25, 2024).
"RELX Stays the World's Largest Publisher in 2024"
Publishers Weekly
. Retrieved
November 21,
2025
External links
edit
National Geographic Learning, part of Cengage Learning
ed2go, part of Cengage Learning
Cengage Group
Academic and professional
Chilton
Gale
Charles Scribner's Sons
HighBeam Research
Encyclopedia.com
G. K. Hall & Co.
InfoTrac
Questia
Schirmer
Reference
Other
WebAssign
Authority control databases
International
ISNI
VIAF
National
United States
Poland
Israel
Other
Yale LUX
Retrieved from "
Categories
Cengage
American companies established in 2007
Book publishing companies based in Massachusetts
Educational publishing companies of the United States
Textbook publishing companies
Companies based in Boston
Education companies established in 2007
Publishing companies established in 2007
2007 establishments in Massachusetts
Apax Partners companies
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2013
Privately held companies based in Boston
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