Presses de la Cité

Presses de la Cité is a French publishing company founded in 1943 by , the son and grandson of booksellers, who came to Paris in 1924.^[1] Before becoming a publisher, Nielsen specialised in exporting French books.

In 1988, with its merger with Larousse-Nathan, Groupe de La Cité became the second-largest publishing company in France and the tenth-largest in the world.^[2] It was acquired by Vivendi Universal Publishing and is now part of Editis.

History[]

Having first specialised in translating American novels, Presses de la Cité first published home-produced work in 1946 with Je me souviens... by Georges Simenon, which became the first part of his novel Pedigree. At a rate of three or four books a year, Presses de la Cité published 140 of Simenon's novels and collections. Following Simenon's example, other French-language authors signed with the company, including Henri Queffélec, Cécil Saint-Laurent, Maurice Genevoix, René Barjavel, and Konsalik.

Starting in 1958, the company started on a stream of acquisitions:

• 1958: Purchase of , founded in December 1946 as , which specialised in popular and travel books.
• 1959: Purchase of Éditions Perrin, academic publisher founded in 1884.
• 1961: Purchase of , founded in 1945 as , which specialised in youth literature and was later renamed to G.P. Rouge et Or ('G.P. Red and Gold').
• 1961: Purchase of , specialist in children's books and humour.

In 1962, Presses de la Cité started a paperback imprint called . The following year, this was merged with .

In April 1965, Nielsen bought a majority stake in (UGE), founded in 1962, which included the imprints Plon, 10/18, Éditions du Rocher, Éditions Julliard and Jean-Jacques Pauvert, and the distributor . One of the publishers, , founded his own publishing house under the Presses de la Cité umbrella and, in 1968, was nominated director of 10/18. After these acquisitions, the Sven Nielsen group became the second-largest French publisher, after Hachette Livre. It diversified into publishing works on social sciences and for the youth market.^[3]

In April 1969, Nielsen and the Bertelsmann group formed a book club on the German model, called , which soon became a success.

In January 1971, the company was reorganised, with distribution by Les Presses de la Cité Diffusion (for Presses de la Cité, G.P. Rouge et Or and Presses-Pocket) and Nouvelle Société Sequana (for Plon, Perrin, Julliard, Solar, 10/18, Bourgois et Le Rocher).

In 1973, the companies Presses de la Cité, Diffusion and Sequana were merged under the name ^[4]

Nielsen died on (1976-12-30)December 30, 1976, aged 75. His son succeeded him, and sold some parts of the company to the investment bank Générale Occidentale, which provided capital to purchase and .

In 1986, the company was bought by James Goldsmith, who resold Presses de la Cité to Ambroise Roux's Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE) the next year. It was thenceforth part of Groupe de la Cité (GDC), a holding company founded by , led by and controlled by Havas, and CGE. In 1988, GDC acquired the British children's publisher Kingfisher.^[5] In 1989, GDC acquired the French legal publisher Dalloz and the British reference publisher Chambers. They also launched the American publisher Millbrook Press. In 1990, GDC acquired Éditions Robert Laffont. In 1992, GDC acquired British publisher . GDC sold Millbrook in 1994.^[6]

CEP acquired almost complete control of the Groupe in 1995. With 7 billion French francs of assets, it became, in 1996, the largest publisher in France. Havas acquired full ownership of CEP in 1997 and In 1998, Havas was acquired by the company that became Vivendi. Presses de la Cité became part of Vivendi Universal Publishing (VUP), which in 2002 was sold to Hachette Group and then in 2003 passed to Wendel Investissement. Presses de la Cité then became part of Editis. In 2008, Wendel sold Editis to the Spanish Grupo Planeta. In 2019, Vivendi acquired Editis from Planeta.

References[]

External links[]

• Official website