Publishers Dueling for No. 1

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Last month, I penned a few lines on these pages describing how Canada's The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC) was buying intellectual property and regulatory information provider Information Holdings (NYSE: IHI), which will strengthen Thomson's scientific information division. But as Thomson moves to shore up the weakest of its four business segments, Anglo-Dutch publishing competitor Reed Elsevier (NYSE: ENL) has made a flanking attack on Thomson's position as the world's largest legal publisher.

Last Thursday, Reed announced that it had agreed to acquire privately held Seisint Inc., a Florida-based provider and "dataminer" of public records operating in the risk management sphere, for $745 million in cash (net of Seisint's own cash). The acquisition will increase revenues at Reed's Risk Management subdivision of its LexisNexis business by about 50%. By the end of the first year after acquisition, Seisint should already be dropping pennies to Reed's bottom line.

At present, there are six big-league players in the international professional publishing arena. Overall, Thomson and Reed are neck and neck for first place in this pack, both having annual revenues in the $7.5 billion range. Thomson's claim to fame is that it is the biggest publisher in the legal sphere; Reed's, that it is the biggest publisher in the scientific sphere.

As for the others, third place for overall annual revenues goes to England's Pearson PLC (NYSE: PSO) (the worldwide leader in educational publishing), followed more distantly by, in order, England'sReuters Group (Nasdaq: RTRSY) (the worldwide leader in financial publishing), McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) (No. 2 in educational publishing), and the Netherlands' Wolters Kluwer (No. 2 in legal publishing).

I am sure that the third through sixth companies are fine companies in their own rights. But what is really fascinating is watching the two leaders, Thomson and Reed, jockey for the title of worldwide uber-publisher. It's like observing two grand masters play an elegant game of chess: Thomson sees Reed building up a position of strength in scientific publishing and moves to undermine it by buying Information Holdings. Yet, before Thomson can even complete its maneuver, Reed is already counterattacking against Thomson's advanced position in legal publishing.

Who will win the game remains unknown. But it's certainly a joy to watch the masters at work.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no interest in any of the companies mentioned in this article. The Fool has a disclosure policy .