Berchem, April 19th 2022 – The educational publishers Plantyn and Uitgever Averbode/Editions Erasme combine their strengths. As a group with a combined experience of 170 years, they are better equipped to build the educational solutions schools, teachers and pupils need to shape the future.
“The Belgian educational landscape is confronted with a lot of challenges”, says Bart Dooms, Managing Director of Plantyn. “Our new organisation will allow us to focus even more on high-quality and all-encompassing educational solutions that rely on a healthy mix of media and platforms. I look forward to deploy this to its full potential.”
Concretely, Plantyn will acquire 100% of the shares of Uitgeverij Averbode/Editions Erasme. In the initial phase, both organisations will focus on their current activities in this crucial time in the run-up to next school year. In other words, nothing changes for clients and suppliers at the moment. The joint vision on the future will take shape in the months to come, after which it will gradually be deployed as of 2023.
To help guide this process, Katleen Lanens, currently the CFO of Plantyn, will transfer to Averbode/Erasme. She will, as Managing Director, in collaboration with the management team over there, bridge the gap between both organisations.
“With the combination of Plantyn and Averbode/Erasme we create a group with a unique combination of strong brands and a particularly complementary market proposal”, says Katleen Lanens. “Together, we dispose of the experience and expertise that is required to develop innovative teaching methods and platforms that offer to both teachers and pupils the leverage they need to ensure that our education system evolves in sync with the rest of society.”
In the future, the new group will continue to play a leading role in the development of teaching solutions that help both teachers and students move forward, individually and collectively. “After all, together we stand stronger to create an offer that is both high-quality and all-encompassing and to invest in a healthy mix of media and platforms”, adds Bart Dooms. “We strive towards a unified organisation that is more than the sum of the parts, traditions and well-founded teaching methods of both companies.”