STM Advisers LLC (STMA), a financial advisory and consulting firm in scientific and scholarly communications, recently assisted the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in successfully exploring strategic alternatives for its high quality mathematics books and journals publishing programs.
Over a fifteen month collaboration, STMA worked with the MAA to evaluate alternatives for its book and textbook program, as well as for its three mathematics journals and one magazine, The American Mathematical Monthly, Mathematics Magazine, The College Mathematics Journal, and Math Horizons. In the eyes of MAA's Executive Director, Michael Pearson, both programs, while venerable and prestigious, lacked sufficient scale to have the financial and outreach impact the Association desired.
STMA recognised the value of the MAA's programs to third parties, and orchestrated separate licensing programs for both elements. This involved STMA's own examination of the properties and preparing comprehensive offering materials. STMA then confidentially contacted, on the MAA's behalf, a number of commercial publishers and societies to determine their interest in partnering with the MAA.
Based on this strong interest, STMA coordinated a carefully controlled bidding procedure, first for the MAA's journals and magazine, and subsequently for MAA Books. This process resulted in bids from multiple parties for both programs, and after presentations and negotiations a winning partner was selected for each program. The net financial benefit to the MAA will be, over the life of the strategic relationships, more than $10 million.
On September 29th, the American Mathematical Society (the AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America announced an agreement for the AMS to acquire the MAA's book publishing program. The high-quality mathematics titles and textbooks developed and edited by MAA Press will now be published as an imprint of the AMS Book Program. The agreement includes all existing MAA Press books, as well as a renewable license to continue to publish new books under the MAA Press imprint.
Beginning in January 2018, the MAA journals and magazine will be published in collaboration with Taylor & Francis.
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