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Viacom mulls book sale?
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December 30, 1997: 7:10 a.m. ET
Simon & Schuster could be up for sale as Viacom focuses on entertainment
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Viacom Inc. may be looking at selling off some or all of its Simon & Schuster publishing division and the price tag could reach $4 billion.
No deal is imminent but the company is actively exploring its option to sell the publishing house, the Wall Street Journal said Tuesday. Viacom would not comment on such a sale.
Viacom (VIA.B) acquired Simon & Schuster as part of its $10 billion takeover in 1994 of Paramount Communications Inc.
Since the outset of that deal, however, large media investors have sought to persuade Viacom's Chairman Sumner Redstone to divest itself of the publishing unit and focus on the faster-growing entertainment divisions like its MTV cable network, the Journal said.
One of the companies looking to buy Simon & Schuster, whose imprints include Prentice Hall, Pocket Books and Scribners, could be Germany's Bertelsmann AG.
Simon & Schuster, whose cash flow is estimated to rise only 2 percent this year, is being hurt by the same factors battering the rest of the publishing industry; low profits, large amounts of unsold books being returned, and bidding wars for authors.
Simon & Schuster has scored some hits this year, however, including Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" and Clive Cussler's "Flood Tide."
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