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Founded by Egmont Harald Petersen on Sep 5, 1984, in Copenhagen.1
History
The Egmont Group was founded by Egmont Harald Petersen in 1878, as a one-man printing business, but soon became a magazine business. It was originally called "P. Petersen, Printers", named after Petersen's mother, as he was still too young at the time to register his own company. The company was renamed Gutenberghus in 1914 (after the famous inventor of the printing press), a name it kept until 1992.
In 1948, Gutenberghus, looking for new opportunities, sent its editor Dan Folke to Walt Disney Productions, and he managed to acquire a license for publishing comic magazines in Scandinavia. In 1948, the company started to publish a Donald Duck comic magazine in Sweden (as Kalle Anka & C:o) and Norway (as Donald Duck & C:o), in 1949 also in Denmark (as Anders And & C:o). This magazine features all the well known Disney characters, from Mickey Mouse to Little Hiawatha under license from Disney.
With the acquisition in 1963, of the Danish publisher Aschehoug, Egmont also entered the book market. From the late 1980s the Egmont Group used the close connection with Disney to expand their Scandinavian focus to a global focus, being the producer of Disney for the new Eastern European market, as well as for the Chinese market. In 1991, Egmont was co-founder of the Norwegian television channel TV 2, before buying it outright in 2012.
In 1992, Egmont bought Nordisk Film. In 1997, Egmont acquired Semic Press. In 1998, Egmont acquired the children's book catalogue of Reed Elsevier. In 2008, they acquired the minority stake in magazine publisher Hjemmet Mortensen which they did not already hold, from Orkla ASA.
In September 1999, Egmont Group entered a joint venture with Munich-based German production & distribution company EM.TV & Merchandising to launch a publishing subsidiary that could bring EM.TV's productions under one roof named Junior.Publishing. Egmont Group would later acquire the remaining 50% of the joint-venture children's publishing company Junior.Publishing two years later in November 2001 when EM.TV announced their exiting of the publishing business in order for them to focus on their core entertainment business giving Egmont full control of Junior.Publishing having it renamed to Egmont Publishing.
Egmont has a number of local country branches: Australia, Bulgaria (Egmont Bulgaria), China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany (Egmont Ehapa), Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom.
Egmont is one of Scandinavia's leading media groups producing weeklies, magazines, comics, books, educational materials, activity products, movies and TV programs. The media group also operates movie theatres and TV stations, and the Egmont name is behind interactive games, game consoles, music and a wide range of digital media. Egmont publishes media in more than 30 countries, has over 5,300 employees and generated revenue amounting to over €2 billion in 2021.
By August 2002, Egmont Group entered a major restructure and had its entertainment distribution division Egmont Entertainment merged into its film & television production company Nordisk Film with former Egmont Entertainment header Kenneth Plummer became Nordisk Film's new managing director with Nordisk Film will handle all of Egmont's film & television production activities as Soren E. Jakobsen stepped down as film chief of the latter but would continued to work Egmont's television interests. Six days later following the restructure and merger of Egmont Group's entertainment division Egmont Entertainment with their film & television production and distribution company Egmont Group shuttered their animation international production arm Egmont Imagination and had most of Egmont Imagination's projects being absorbed into Egmont's multimedia entertainment, film & television production and distribution company Nordisk Film. The following year in March 2003, Dutch production & distribution company Telescreen alongside its parent Palm Plus Multimedia acquired the Egmont Imagination catalogue outside the Nordic regions from Egmont Group with Telescreen distributing the Egmont Imagination library internationally except the Nordic regions.
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Egmont acquired Forma Publishing Group in October 2014. In January 2015, the company shut down its American publishing division.
On 1 May 2020, Egmont completed the sale of three of its publishers (Egmont Books UK, Egmont Poland, and Schneiderbuch Germany) to HarperCollins.
Egmont Foundation
Egmont has a charitable wing. The founder's last will and testament paved the way for Egmont's charitable work to support social, cultural and scientific causes. As a foundation, Egmont helps improve children's and young people's quality of life, donating more than 235 million Euros to social, cultural and health projects since 1920.
From Wikipedia’s article on Egmont Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5