Manuel Salvat Dalmau
Manuel Salvat Dalmau was a Spanish publisher. From a family of important publishing tradition, he directed the Editorial Salvat and served as president of the International Publishers Association.
Private life
Son of Santiago Salvat Espasa and Rosa Dalmau Vilá and grandson of Manuel Salvat Xivixell. He studied in the Col·legi Sant Ignasi - Sarrià of Barcelona where he was acknowledged as a brilliant student. Graduated with a degree in Law from the University of Barcelona and a degree in Business Management from IESE Business School. He was married to Blanca Vilá Reyes and had six sons and one daughter. He was also the joint co-founder of the Escuela Patmos of Barcelona in 1958 with five other couples, Priest Joan Alemany i Esteve, and writer and pedagogue Emili Teixidor.Professional life
Editorial Salvat
Manuel Salvat Dalmau joined the family business, Salvat Editores S.A., in the late 1940s, becoming manager, together with his brothers Santiago and Juan. The company was then leading the Spanish American market in dictionaries and medical works. From that position, it developed an important change in the Spanish publishing sector by intensifying the sales of encyclopedias through instalments. The Salvat Group associated with the Boroli family, owner of De Agostini, which had initiated the sale through fascicles in Italy. For that purpose, they created a new distribution company, Marco Ibérica S.A., reaching 22 thousand kiosks weekly, resulting in unprecedented success in 1965 with the ', of which more than 300 thousand complete collections were sold.Other outstanding achievements while he directed the publishing company were: Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente's ', with over 200 thousand sold copies and the paperback collection RTV, of which the first edition in 1969 sold over a million copies. The Editorial Salvat created over 50 encyclopedias, being also pioneer in incorporating CDs and cassettes in diverse works. In France it obtained a very important market quota. In Latin America it specialized in the sales of encyclopedias with notable success.
Manuel Salvat's trajectory led him to become president of the International Publishers Association from 1980 to 1984.
In the late 1980s the Salvat Group was purchased by the French multinational Hachette.