Lonely Planet Sells Out

In an odd deal that will likely generate lots of discussion, the Wheelers have sold 75 percent of the Lonely Planet publishing empire to the BBC. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but you can bet it was quite a Ka-Ching for the former backpacking hippies. The story says it fell under the BBC’s 350 million pound borrowing cap, but even if it’s half that amount it’s a major chunk of change for three quarters of Lonely Planet.

This deal is wierd in a lot of ways though. First of all, since the BBC gets a big portion of its revenue from licensing fees in the UK, this is quite a blatent commercial undertaking. It’s also odd that a publishing company based in Australia, that counts the U.S. as its largest market, gets bought by a quasi-private British firm.

It could have been worse though, that’s for sure. If they were swallowed up by Wiley or Random House, this would be a day of mourning. This quote from LP’s Europe chief is not very encouraging though: “We bring into their portfolio travel as a passion point and we’re very much a complement to what they’re doing with cars, food, gardening and so on.” Keep an eye out for the Rose Gardening Thorn Tree coming soon…