The Quarto Group is a global illustrated bookpublishing group founded in 1976. It is domiciled in the United States and listed on the London Stock Exchange. Quarto creates and sells illustrated books for adults and children, across 50 countries and in 40 languages through a variety of traditional and non-traditional channels. Quarto employs c.330 people in 8 offices in London, Brighton, New York City, Boston, Seattle, California and Hong Kong. The group was established by co-founders Laurence Orbach and Robert Morley and was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1986. Laurence Orbach was Chairman and CEO until November 2012, when he was replaced as Chairman by Tim Chadwick and Marcus Leaver as CEO. Leaver resigned in May 2018 following a dispute with major shareholders Laurence Orbach and Chuk Kin Lau of the Lion Rock Group printing company, over the group's direction. Consequently, Chuk Kin Lau has been CEO of The Quarto Group since July 2018.
History
The Quarto Group was founded by Bob Morley, Michael Jackson and Laurence Orbach in the early 1970s and was finally established as The Quarto Group in 1976. In 1986, Quarto listed on the London stock exchange. By the late 1990s, Quarto had acquired three new imprints, Rotovision, Book Sales Inc and Rockport Publishers and founded Quarto Children's Books, Quintet and Quintessence that published art, health, lifestyle and children's books. The group expanded further in the US – with the addition of Book Sales, Rockport Publishers, Walter Foster, Creative Publishing International, Motorbooks, and more recently, Cool Springs Press. In the UK, Quarto grew by acquiring Aurum Press and then Jacqui Small in 2004. By the 2000s, The Quarto Group had increased imprints and genres, along with this, a steady increase in its share value. In August 2011, The Quarto Group acquired independent UK book publisher Frances Lincoln for £4.5 million. In 2012, Marcus Leaver took over from Laurence Orbach as Group CEO and in the same year, the group made a profit of $11.4 million on revenue of $181 million. Since then, the group has pursued a stated strategy of growing both organically and through judicious acquisitions, while constantly focusing on operational efficiencies. With increasing profit, 2013 saw a restructure of The Quarto Group by creating and renaming four distinct businesses: Quarto Publishing UK, Quarto Publishing US, Quarto Publishing International Co-editions and Books & Gifts Direct. By 2014, the group had started two new children's imprints: Wide Eyed Editions and words & pictures, and acquired small world creations This helped the increase in share price by 60% since 2010. In 2015 Quarto acquired Ivy Press and Ivy Kids for £1.5m and continued its expansion In 2016, Quarto acquired becker&mayer, a co-edition publisher based in Bellevue, WA, for $9.8 million. In 2017, Quarto implemented a new organizational structure, moving away from geographic business divisions and encouraging imprints to be run as independent businesses with creative, commercial and financial oversight from the centre. The group has established a central platform that includes finance, operations, sales, marketing and foreign rights sales and that services all its imprints. That same year, Quarto sold its last two non-publishing businesses – Books & Gifts Direct and Regent Publishing Services – and is now solely focused on its core publishing expertise.
Awards
2016 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize – Illustrated Book: The Bear and the piano, by David Litchfield, published by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.
2017 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize – Illustrated Book: There’s a tiger in the garden, by Lizzy Stewart, published by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.
Blue Peter Book Awards 2019, Best Book with Facts: The Colours of History, by Clive Gifford, published by QED Publishing.
British Book Awards 2018, Rights Professional of the Year: Karine Marko, Group Director of Foreign Rights at The Quarto Group.
International publishing partnerships
The Quarto Group has launched a number of foreign-language imprints through international partnerships with foreign publishers. These include: Quarto Editora The Quarto Editora imprint was launched in Brazil in 2014 through an international publishing partnership with Brasil Franchising and their publishing business Editora Nobel. Quarto Editora publishes in categories such as cookery, beauty and self-help. Nobel Editora distributes the books through its franchises and main book trade channels. Kalimat Quarto Kalimat Quarto was launched in 2016 as an international publishing partnership with Sharjah-based Kalimat Group. The imprint publishes books in Arabic and distributes them throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Quarto Iberoamericana Announced in May 2017, Quarto Iberoamericana is Quarto's Spanish language imprint launched in partnership with Argentina-based publisher Catapulta Editores S.L. The imprint publishes 20 books a year with the first six books, launching in Autumn 2017, in adult categories such as cookery, lifestyle and spirituality. Catapulta Editores will be responsible for sales and distribution in Spain, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Quarto is expected to announce more partners to distribute the books in the rest of Latin America and North America in the near future.
