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Reed Elsevier PLC of the United Kingdom, the parent company of LexisNexis Group has been brought into the spotlight because of security breaches in the personal data collection database company, causing the shares in the parent company to fluctuate. The publishing concern is not daunted however and plans to avidly endorse the business of collecting personal data for sale to banks, lawyers, employers and other clients.

Morris Tabaksblat, the chairman of Reed Elsevier PLC, said that the first major issue that the new chief executive would have to deal with is whether or not the company should stay independent. Mr. Tagbaksblat said that Reed may have an entirely different look with all the major changes occuring within the publishing industry. Mr. Tabaksblat may even be merged or acquired.

M2 BEST BOOKS-(C)2000-2004 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD Anglo-Dutch publishing group Reed Elsevier has said that is confident it will meet its full-year targets for profit growth. The company, which publishes textbooks [...]

Wolters Kluwer (Amsterdam) has reached an agreement to acquire nursing and health science publisher Springhouse Corp. (Springhouse, PA) from Reed Elsevier (London). No terms of the deal were given. Springhouse [...]

Pierre Vinken and Loek van Vollenhoven have resigned as directors of Reed Elsevier, making it harder for the company to recruit a new chief executive. Jonathan Newcomb was expected to take the post but refused it and the two director's resignations were intended to imply dissatisfaction with the work of the non-executive director, David Masters, who was heading the recruitment campaign. The company is in financial trouble and its shares are extremely low. A new chief executive would have to consider a total restructure of the company and a demerger.

Anglo-Dutch publishing group Reed Elsevier's management restructuring is meant to be a response to major strategic challenges facing the group. Reed Elsevier has decided to end its system of co-chairmen based in London and Amsterdam. It will instead have one chief executive. The current co-chairmen, Herman Bruggink and Nigel Stapleton, say that whoever takes over as chief executive will need strong marketing skills to handle the changing environment. The challenges facing the firm include the growing importance of electronic publishing and competition in traditional areas.

Tough conditions imposed by European competition authorities have prompted Anglo-Dutch publishing concern Reed Elsevier to abandon plans for an 18 million pounds sterling merger with Dutch concern Wolters Kluwer. The deal would have created the largest professional and scientific publishing operation in the world, with total profits of 1.2 billion pounds sterling on sales of 5 billion pounds sterling. Experts believe that Reed will now focus on building up its business through smaller acquisitions.

The $32.4 billion merger of Reed Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer has created a large concern which controls a wide range of specialist business information. It is likely to see considerable financial gain from supplying publications containing tax and legal information. This may prompt Reed Elsevier to dispose of IPC, its UK magazine publishing unit. In the merged group, specialist titles will account for 89% of sales, and a general interest publisher will therefore be rather out of place.

Reed Elsevier has set up an online service providing its Estates Gazette journal, with a full launch scheduled by Jun 1996. An initial launch serving 20 estate agents from London England is first being piloted. The company faces competition from services using the Internet, and this has led to an increased focus on electronic publishing. Other electronic publishing projects include Tetrahedon Letters, providing information for chemists, which is released twice and three times weekly, and New Astronomy, an electronic journal.