Macmillan Education Schools Division to withdraw from Australia market

Macmillan Education is to review its local operations in Australia, “with the intention of withdrawing from the Australian market in due course”.

The Springer Nature division said it had decided to focus on markets where Macmillan Education has a strong competitive position or expects sustainable future growth, such as Argentina, the Caribbean, India, Mexico and Southern Africa.

“Unfortunately, this is not the case in the Australian K-12 market, which has shown continuous decline in recent years,” the publisher said. “Despite the commitment and talent of the local team, Macmillan Education has not been able to operate in a sustainable way. As a result, we will be working with staff, authors, customers and other stakeholders to manage our withdrawal from this market.”

Macmillan Education said it would be “reaching out to customers to discuss existing agreements and ongoing support to ensure they can continue to use the products they have purchased and that any impact on students is minimised.” It will also be working with its Australian authors to agree future arrangements, it said.

The move does not affect Macmillan International Higher Education (MIHE) or Macmillan’s English Language Teaching (ELT) businesses.