Houghton-Mifflin To Be Bought

Irish educational software firm Riverdeep Incorporated has agreed to pay $3.4 billion for Boston based Houghton-Mifflin Company, one of the nation's largest textbook publishers.

The deal was announced jointly by the companies today.

Riverdeep has recently purchased software companies that serve schools around the world.

Houghton-Mifflin is owned by private equity firms Bain Capital, Thomas H. Lee Partners and the Blackstone Group, which purchased the publisher for French media giant Vivendi in 2002 for 1.7 billion dollars.