orig. Jan Ludvik Hoch
born June 10, 1923, Slatina-Selo, Czech.
died Nov. 5, 1991, at sea off the Canary Islands
Czech-British publisher.
Of Jewish origin, he lost many family members in the Holocaust but managed to reach Britain and become an army officer. After the war he founded Pergamon Press, which became a major publisher of trade journals and scientific books. In the 1980s he revived the British Printing Corp. and purchased the Mirror Group Newspapers, though his financial practices were officially questioned. Among the U.S. acquisitions of Maxwell Communications were the New York Daily News (1991) and the publishing house Macmillan. The revelation of fraudulent financial dealings aimed at bolstering his collapsing empire was followed by his death by drowning from his yacht in the Atlantic. It was assumed to have been a suicide.