Brøderbund: Encyclopedia II - Brøderbund - Corporate history

Brøderbund - Corporate history

Brøderbund was founded by brothers Doug and Gary Carlston in 1980. Their sister, Cathy, joined a year later. Before founding the company, Doug was a lawyer and Gary had held a number of jobs, including teaching Swedish at an American college.

Brøderbund became a public company in 1991 (their NASDAQ symbol, no longer operative, was BROD). Their stock price and market capitalization climbed steadily to a maximum of nearly USD$80/share in late 1995, and then fell steadily in the face of continued losses for a number of years.

Brøderbund was purchased by The Learning Company in 1998 for about USD$420 million in stock. In 1999 the combined company was bought by Mattel for the astounding sum of $3.6 billion. Mattel reeled from the financial impact of this transaction, and Jill Barad, the CEO, ended up being forced out in a climate of investor outrage. Mattel then actually gave away The Learning Company in September 2000 to Gores Technology Group, a private acquisitions firm, for a share of whatever Gores could obtain by selling the company. In 2001, Gores sold The Learning Company's entertainment holdings to Ubisoft, and most of the other holdings, including the Brøderbund name, to Riverdeep.

Broderbund, with an o instead of the 'ø' character, is now the brand name for Riverdeep's graphic design, productivity, and edutainment titles, such as The Print Shop, Carmen Sandiego, Mavis Beacon, the Living Books series, and Reader Rabbit titles, and also publishes software for other companies, notably Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Corporate history", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki