Longhorn Publishers limited is a public limited liability company wholly-owned and run by Kenyans. It was incorporated in Kenya in May 1965 as Longmans of Kenya a wholly owned subsidiary of Longman Group International of the United Kingdom. At that time, it was mainly a sales promotion office handling Longman publications published in UK. In December 1969, the company changed name to Longman Kenya Limited. During the 1970s, a limited local publishing programme was started and, around the same time, a few Kenyans were invited to join the Board of Directors. Following the opening up of Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many multinationals shifted their focus from Africa to the new markets. In addition, in the 1990’s, Kenya’s then Minister for Education banned the importation of textbooks. This forced multinationals to consider other ways of supplying the Kenyan market, including licensing, which drastically reduced their margins (as compared to supplying stock). As a result, in the 1980s Longman