Hachette Livre Parent Company Lagardere Announces Acquisition of Pika in France

PARIS (February 28, 2007) -- On the heels of the recent announcement regarding Hachette Book Group USA's graphic novel imprint Yen Press' first acquisitions comes another exciting announcement from Hachette's parent company Lagardère. Today, Lagardère announces that Hachette Livre is acquiring PIKA, the third largest manga publisher in the French market. The acquisition of PIKA will also contribute to manga businesses across Hachette Livre, including Yen Press.

In France, the manga market has shown a strong growth over the past four years and represents one third of the comics market. PIKA, with a 12% market share and a catalog of approximately 600 titles, including a number of European-created titles, was founded by Alain Kahn in 2000. Together with publisher Pierre Valls, they both developed the business to make PIKA the #3 publisher in the French manga market.

Hachette Livre, as well as PIKA, plan to further develop partnerships with Japanese manga publishers.

For Hachette Livre, the acquisition represents a new phase in the development of its graphic novel businesses, which will be enriched by this partnership and target a new customer base with this growing genre.

Lagardère owns Hachette Livre, which is the parent company of Hachette Book Group USA.