Maxwell Communication Corporation

Formation and turbulent years

The company was established in 1964 when Hazell Sun merged with Purnell & Sons (which also owned book publisher Macdonald) to form the British Printing Corporation.[1] In 1967, the British Printing Corporation merged its magazines into Haymarket Group.[2] During the 1970s the British Printing Corporation was involved in many disputes with trade unions.[3] In 1978 such a dispute led to The Times and Sunday Times not being published for ten months.[3]

Robert Maxwell's acquisition and company restructuring

In July 1981, Robert Maxwell launched a dawn raid on the company, acquiring a stake of 29%; the following year he secured full control of it.[3] He changed the name of the company to British Printing & Communications Corporation in March 1982 and to Maxwell Communication Corporation in October 1987.

The company acquired Macmillan Inc., a large US publisher, in 1988.[4] It went on to buy Science Research Associates (SRA) and the Official Airline Guide (OAG) later that year.[5] SRA was sold to a joint venture of Maxwell's Macmillan and McGraw Hill the next year.[6]

Administration and legal consequences

The company went into administration in 1991 following the death of Robert Maxwell.[7] Its properties were sold to various media companies. Time Warner (then parent of Little, Brown and Company) acquired Macdonald.[8] McGraw Hill acquired that part of Macmillan/McGraw Hill it did not already own outright. OAG was acquired by Reed Elsevier,[9] while Macmillan was folded into Simon & Schuster.[10]

In 1999, British courts determined that Coopers & Lybrand had made gross errors during their audits of the Maxwell group of companies and fined Coopers & Lybrand a record £3.3million.[11]