Deseret Book has made large acquisitions without disclosing financial details in the past.
In 1999, its parent company, Deseret Management Corp., bought Bookcraft Inc. That transaction included a plan to continue publishing under both the Deseret Book and Bookcraft brands, with the former appearing on LDS doctrinal, historical and biographical titles and the latter on inspirational, self-help, youth and fiction books. The company's Shadow Mountain brand would continue to publish titles for the national market, and a new Eagle Gate Press brand would feature specialty items such as library editions, collections, art books and non-book products such as bookmarks and jewelry.
In November 2004, Deseret Book announced it had acquired Excel Entertainment Group. Excel had distributed LDS films — "God's Army," "The Other Side of Heaven" and "Charly" among them — and produced and distributed music. Deseret Book published the books of the latter two, and the companies jointly marketed DVD and VHS versions of all three. The combined company's first project was "The Work and the Glory," a film from the Deseret Book best-selling book series.
The acquisition called for Deseret Book to keep the Excel Entertainment name for the combined company's movie distribution division and for select music artists. All music products and artists would be managed under Deseret Book's Shadow Mountain music label.