Santa Barbara Company ABC-CLIO Bought by U.K. Publisher

In a December deal which received little local attention, longtime Santa Barbara book and database publisher ABC-CLIO was acquired by London-based Bloomsbury Publishing. The $22.4M sale ended the family-owned company’s 65-year history (and 60 years in Santa Barbara) as an independent non-fiction publisher serving the library and school markets. 

Bloomsbury — the original publisher of the Harry Potter franchise — is a respected trade and academic book and database publisher. A public company with a market capitalization of about $400M, Bloomsbury has made several acquisitions in recent years. In a press release announcing the deal, Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton commented: “We are delighted to welcome ABC-CLIO to Bloomsbury. ABC-CLIO is a long-standing and respected American publisher.”

In recent years ABC-CLIO has occupied a location on two floors at 147 Castilian Drive, although that office has largely stood empty for the last two years as staff worked from home during the pandemic. At its peak, the company had 100-120 staff in our area and more around the country and, for a time, offices in Colorado and Oxford, England. The company employed dozens of writers, editors, marketers, and support staff at its Riviera and then Goleta offices, many of whom got their first jobs as budding writers and editors, finding a rare opportunity to make a career on the back of their education in history and the humanities. The company long identified itself as a premier history publisher and, if you’re wondering, Clio is the Greek muse of history.