The story
In 1998, Gale Research merged with Information Access Company and Primary Source Media, two companies also owned by Thomson, to form the Gale Group. Thomson has acquired Information Access Company (publisher of InfoTrac) in 1995 and Primary Source Media (formerly named Research Publications) in 1979.
In 1999, Thomson Gale acquired Macmillan Library Reference (including Scribner's Reference, Thorndike Press, Schirmer, Twayne Publishers, and G. K. Hall) from Pearson (which had acquired it from Simon & Schuster in 1998; Macmillan USA was purchased by Simon & Schuster in 1994). In 2000 it acquired the Munich-based K. G. Saur Verlag, but then sold it to Walter de Gruyter in 2006.
On October 25, 2006, Thomson Corporation announced that it intended to wholly divest the Thomson Learning division, because, in the words of Thomson CEO Richard Harrington, "it does not fit with our long-term strategic vision." Thomson has said that it expected this sale to generate approximately $5 billion. Thomson Learning was bought by a private equity consortium consisting of Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners for $7.75 billion and the name was changed from Thomson Learning to Cengage Learning on July 24, 2007.
Patrick C. Sommers was president of Gale from October 22, 2007, until he retired in 2010. In 2013, Cengage Learning filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
From Wikipedia’s article on Gale (publisher), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4