- R. H. Donnelley
Infobox_Company
company_name = R. H. Donnelley Corporation
company_
company_type =Public (nyse|RHD)
company_slogan =
foundation = 1886
location =Cary, NC ,USA
key_people =David C. Swanson , Chairman and CEO| industry = Directory Publishing
num_employees = 4,400
products = Telephone Directories
revenue =
homepage = http://www.rhd.comR. H. Donnelley is a telephone directory publisher.
History
The R. H. Donnelley Company was founded in 1886 by Reuben Hamilton Donnelley (the son of Richard Robert Donnelley) as The Chicago Directory Company. Donnelley primarily contracted with The Chicago Telephone Company to publish telephone directories for Chicago Telephone customers. In 1906, however, Donnelley would venture outside
Chicago , contracting withBell System firms such asNew York Telephone ,Wisconsin Telephone , and Cincinnati Suburban Telephone Co.In 1917, The Reuben H. Donnelley Company was incorporated and moved to
New York City , retaining some offices inChicago . In 1925, Donnelley died, leaving behind his company which continued to contract with theBell System to publish telephone directories.In 1961,
Dun & Bradstreet Corp. traded stock with RHD, and RHD became a wholly owned subsidiary.Partnerships
Following its acquisition by D&B, R. H. Donnelley began a series of partnerships with several telephone companies to publish directories. RHD also began competing with other telephone companies to provide directories.
From 1980-1985, RHD began a partnership with
United Telephone (Sprint), called Uni-Don, to publish telephone directories to customers in centralFlorida .In 1986, it contracts with
NYNEX to become its directory sales agent. The same year, RHD starts publishing directories inDelaware ,New Jersey , andPennsylvania in competition withBell Atlantic , although a lot of these areas have since been sold off to Yellow Book.In 1988, it forms Cen-Don with Centel (now part of
Embarq ) to publish telephone directories inFlorida ,Illinois ,Iowa ,Minnesota ,Nevada ,North Carolina ,Ohio andVirginia . Venture One is formed withSouthwestern Bell Corporation , which publishes directories in competition withBell Atlantic inBaltimore, MD andWashington, D.C. In 1990, DonTech is formed with
Ameritech to publish telephone directories inIllinois and northwestIndiana .Public Offering
On
July 1 ,1998 , D&B spins off R. H. Donnelley into a separate, publicly-traded company. RHD then begins trading on theNYSE under the "RHD" symbol.In 2002, RHD acquires Sprint Directory Publishing, the publishing unit of Sprint Corp.
In 2004, RHD acquires the directory publishing business of
SBC Communications inIllinois and northwestIndiana , along with the SBC interest in DonTech. As a result, R. H. Donnelley gains a 50-year licensing agreement to use the SBC Yellow Pages name on all directories published forSBC Illinois customers. Following theAT&T merger, the directories are now known as "AT&T Yellow Pages published by R. H. Donnelley".In 2006, RHD completed its acquisition of
Dex Media , which was spun off fromQwest in 2003-2004. Following the acquisition, RHD becomes the third largest directory publisher in theUnited States .In January 2007, RHD bought [http://www.locallaunch.com Local Launch Search Marketing] to add strength its online marketing division for its yellow pages.
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