Amazon to acquire publishing business of Tata-owned Westland for undisclosed sum

Mumbai: US-based e-commerce giant Amazon on Friday said it is acquiring the publishing business of Tata-owned Westland for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition will enable authors of Westland, a subsidiary of Tata Group firm Trent, to grow their physical and digital book businesses in India as well as expand their reach to customers globally, Amazon said in a statement here.

Earlier this year, the online marketplace had acquired a 26 per cent stake in the Tata-owned publishing company,

"Our acquisition of Westland continues our commitment to India -- enabling Amazon to bring Westland's highly talented authors and their books to even more customers in India and around the world," said Amit Agarwal, Vice-President and Country Manager at Amazon India.

"Since investing in Westland earlier this year, we have built a great relationship with the company and its authors. With this acquisition, we are very excited to take our relationship with Westland to the next level," he added.

Westland has a history of over 50 years in retail, distribution and publishing. It is an amalgamation of two companies, Westland Books and EastWest Books (Madras).

"Amazon's roots are in books and we are excited to be part of that team in the next phase of our journey," Westland CEO Gautam Padmanabhan said.

The publishing list of Westland, its imprints Tranquebar and EastWest, and imprint extension Mikros, include bestselling authors Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Rashmi Bansal, Rujuta Diwekar, Preeti Shenoy, Devdutt Pattanaik, Anuja Chauhan and Ravi Subramanian, among others.