Summary

Registered in New South Wales in 1884, the company was taken over by IPEC Insurance Ltd in 1970. In 1977 the name of the company was changed to Diene Ltd.

In January 1979 the Angus and Robertson Bookshops were sold to Gordon & Gotch (Australasia) Limited.

Details

The company was registered in Sydney on September 22, 1920. Halstead Printing Co. Ltd, was acquired in 1928/29 and this subsidiary moved to new premises at Kingsgrove, Sydney. Publication of books commenced in 1955. During 1959/60, Robertson & Mullen Ltd., of Melbourne, and Alberts Bookshop Pty. Ltd of Perth were acquired, while a merger was effected with Swain & Co. Pty. Ltd., of Sydney. A takeover offer from Consolidated Press Holding Ltd. was rejected. In 1961 nominees of Consolidated Press purchased shares from Mr A. N. Swain and offered to purchase shares from other stockholders. Consolidated Press later sold these shares.

In July, 1970, Ipec Insurance Limited made a successful takeover offer for all the issued ordinary capital of the company.

In 1980 News Corp Limited purchased Angus and Robertson Publishing.
Angus and Robertson Ltd registered company name changed to Diene Ltd then to Westeq Ltd, which are all now unregistered companies.

Related entries

Timeline

 1884 - Angus and Robertson Limited
       1919 - Gordon and Gotch (Australasia) Limited

Archival resources

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Angus and Robertson Limited records, 1888 - 1963, ML Mss 3394; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

Published resources

Books

• Hodges, H.G., Appendix to an unwritten history, Sydney, 1949, 15 pp. Details

Conference Papers

• Alison, Jennifer, 'Angus and Robertson, Publishers, 1888-1900', in Second History of the Book in Australia (HOBA) Conference, Sydney, 1996, 1996. Details