Boydell & Brewer becomes employee-ownership trust

Independent academic and trade publisher Boydell & Brewer has relaunched as an employee-ownership trust after 45 years in private ownership.

Growing out of the Leviathan Press, the publisher was founded by historian Richard Barber. Boydell & Brewer was formed in 1978 when the renamed Boydell Press merged with academic press D.S. Brewer.

Over the years Boydell has added to its list of scholarly publications by acquiring specialist Spanish and German literature publisher, Tamesis and Camden House, and James Currey Ltd, a publisher of academic books on Africa. The publisher also embarked on a joint venture which saw the foundation of the University of Rochester Press in Rochester, New York.

The employee-ownership trust was established when the surviving founders decided to relinquish their shares and to step down from the board.

At the same time it was decided to rebuild and refresh Boydell’s online presence with a new, "flexible" website that can adapt to changing business needs – such as the direct sale of e-books. The site was designed in-house and built by Firsty Group. It went live this month.

In order to "optimise the company for 21st century book-buying practice", Boydell & Brewer has appointed Wiley to take charge of distribution outside of the Americas, starting in June 2016.

Group managing director, Peter Clifford, said: “The goal of our founders was to create a sustainable business that could continue to meet their aim of publishing important scholarship. Recently, the shareholders and board of directors concluded the time had come to give the business a new foundation for the long term. The Employee Ownership Trust structure does exactly that.

“The senior management team and staff were delighted to have the opportunity to make that arrangement. We all believe in that original aim and want to grow the business that has been built up over the years. We also think this is absolutely the right structure for an innovative academic publisher as it means we can work closely with our authors and readers, providing an independent voice in a highly corporate world.”