Thomson sells Thomson Learning assets.

Investment firms Apax Patners (New York/London) and OMERS Capital Partners (Toronto, ON) have signed a definitive agreement to acquire the higher education, career learning and library reference assets of Thomson Learning and Nelson Canada from the Thomson Corp. for $7.75 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

The higher education, career learning and library reference assets include: Wadsworth, Delmar Learning, Gale, Heinle, Brooks/Cole and South-Western. Nelson Canada, a provider of books and resources for the Canadian market, will be majority-owned by OMERS.

Thomson Delmar Learning (Clifton Park, NY) is a provider of custom learning solutions in health care, technology and trade, and career education. The company develops learning products and services for: career-oriented high school students, independent learners, vocational/technical schools, proprietary schools, career colleges, universities and community colleges in such areas as early childhood development, welding, electrical trades, graphic communications, trucking, CAD/drafting, automotive and agriscience. Delmar also serves the training markets in business, industry and government. Principal imprints include Autodesk Press, Milady, OnWord, Singular and West Legal Studies.

Thomson Gale (Farmington Hills, MI) is a provider of e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses and creates and maintains more than 600 databases that are published online, in print and in microfilm. Publishing imprints include Macmillan Reference USA, Charles Scribner's Sons, Primary Source Microfilm and Responsive Database Services. The company also serves the K-12 market through its Greenhaven Press, Lucent Books, KidHaven Press, Blackbirch Press, and Sleeping Bear Press units. Units Thorndike Press, Walker Large Print and Wheeler Publishing serve the library market.

Thomson Heinle (Belmont, CA) offers products and services for language learning. Units include Newbury House Dictionaries and LTP Series. Thomson Wadsworth (Boston, MA) is a provider of books, online and multimedia products for the humanities, behavioral and social sciences.

Its InfoTrac College Edition is an online research library of full text articles from hundreds of scholarly and relevant periodicals. Educational publisher Thomson Nelson (Scarborough, ON) offers learning materials and online resources for education, business, consumer and government markets. It provides more than 22,000 products for the K-12, post-secondary, and adult corporate training sectors. The company said that revenues have more than doubled over the last five years.

Thomson South-Western and West Legal Studies, both part of Thomson Higher Education (Belmont, CA) offer books and online resources in business and economics, including the accounting, business law, finance, management, real estate and taxation markets. Brooks/Cole, also a part of Thomson Higher Education, produces books and references in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics and physical sciences.