Amazon buys publisher Westland from Tata Group firm Trent
28 Oct 2016
Online retailing giant Amazon.com Inc has signed a deal to acquire the publishing business of Westland, a subsidiary of Tata Group firm Trent Limited and one of India's major publishing houses, for an undisclosed sum.
Vice president and country manager of Amazon India Amit Agarwal said, "Our acquisition of Westland continues our commitment to India -- enabling Amazon to bring Westland's highly talented authors and their books to even more customers in India and around the world."
Earlier this year, Amazon had bought a 26-per cent stake in Westland for an estimated Rs9.5 crore.
The publishing list of Westland, which includes imprints like Tranquebar and EastWest, features best-selling authors like Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Rashmi Bansal, Rujuta Diwekar, Preeti Shenoy, Devdutt Pattanaik, Anuja Chauhan, Ravi Subramanian and the late yoga proponent B K S Iyengar.
The chief executive officer of Westland, Gautam Padmanabhan, said his company, which has a history of over 50 years in retail, distribution and publishing, was "excited" to work with Amazon.
Westland was formed from the merger of two companies, Westland Books Pvt Ltd and EastWest Books (Madras) Pvt Ltd in April 2008.
