Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010
Week of July 21, 2008
Novalis sold to multinational publishing company
The Catholic Register
Ottawa
Saint Paul University is ending its 73-year history with Novalis by selling Canada's largest Catholic book publisher to a Canadian sister company of multinational corporation Bayard Presse.
The university announced the sale on July 3 to all its 25 or so staff, shortly before issuing a press release.
Currently employees of Saint Paul University, they will be laid off on Oct. 1. Some will be offered positions with the new Novalis at its offices in Montreal and Toronto.
"For some time now we have tried to find a way to develop further the mission of Novalis Publishing," Oblate Father Dale Schlitt, university rector, said in the press release.
"We have examined several options and it has become clear that we need to assign the activities of Novalis to others in order to assume the long-term viability and the vitality of its mission."
The university said the money earned from selling Novalis to Bayard Canada would be invested in an endowment fund for the university.
Susan Spino, manager of Bayard Canada, said Bayard Canada's plans for Novalis are "business as usual."
Novalis was started in 1935, by Oblate Father Andr‚ Guay and has been part of Saint Paul ever since.
Novalis is perhaps best known as the publisher of Living With Christ, the Catholic missal used widely in liturgies.
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