Irish educational software firm Riverdeep received a $25 million (€28 million) boost yesterday as Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier increased its shareholding in the group to 3.8 per cent. Reed Elsevier bought 1.39 million new Riverdeep American depositary shares at $18 a share.
Riverdeep, which develops school-age interactive learning solutions and mainly operates in the US, also formed a strategic alliance with US-based Harcourt Education Group, recently acquired by Reed Elsevier.
As part of the alliance, Mr Tony Lucki, chief executive of Harcourt, has joined the Riverdeep board of directors. Shares in Riverdeep rose seven cents to €3.50 in Dublin yesterday, from a year low of €2.43 on September 27th.
Riverdeep executive chairman Mr Barry O'Callaghan said Riverdeep had a unique opportunity to create a new approach to learning that reflected the changing education environment and increasing importance of technology in education.
"This alliance, together with Reed Elsevier's equity investment in Riverdeep, further endorses our strategy for, and vision of, the market opportunity in digital educational publishing," Mr O'Callaghan said. The new entity will develop e-Basal interactive digital instructional content which will be distributed by Harcourt under the Harcourt brand. Basal school texts are the core texts for classes from kindergarten to 12 years of age.
Riverdeep will receive development fees and royalties from the sales and both firms will retain and manage their independent product businesses outside the scope of the alliance.
