T&F snaps up Cavendish

T&F Informa has acquired independent legal publisher Cavendish for an undisclosed sum. The move marks T&F's first foray into law books, which will be published under the joint imprint Routledge Cavendish. "Law is an area we wanted to add to our stable at an academic level," said T&F c.e.o. Roger Horton.

Sonny Leong, Cavendish m.d. and chair of the Independent Publishers Guild , will remain at the company with a long-term view to moving to T&F's Oxfordshire offices. He hopes to continue at the IPG until he is due to step down in March, "but it will be up to the members whether they want me to continue," he said.

No firm plans have been laid for the rest of Cavendish's 19 staff, based in London, but Leong said T &F was "flexible" about people working from its London office in the medium term. Horton added: "It's early days. We will be looking at how best to progress it from here, but it was very important to us that Sonny stayed on."

Since it was established in 1990, Cavendish has become the biggest independent law publisher in the UK. Its most recent results show an operating profit of £165,000 for the year to 30th June 2005, compared with a £221,000 loss in the previous year. Turnover for the period was also up, at £2.56m from £2.28m.

Leong described the decision to sell as "like marrying". "I'm obviously a strong supporter of independent publishers, but at the same one has to consider offers and approaches that are made. When the right partner comes, you sit down and talk about it."

He added: "T&F are very serious about making Routledge Cavendish a global player. That can only be good news."

This is the latest acquisiton by Informa since its merger with Taylor & Francis. Last year the company acquired Triangle Journals ( full details here ).

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