Kingfisher was formed in 1973 as a private company acting as a book packager (i.e to design and produce books as a complete packager for other publishers) of high quality full colour non-fiction books for children, and in 1977 became a fully-fledged publisher.

The Kingfisher business was acquired in 1988 by Havas, a major French publishing group, as part of their international development programme. Havas are a subsidiary of Vivendi. In 1992 a US subsidiary was formed to establish a direct presence in the USA and in 1998 a Hong Kong office was set up. Kingfisher publications Plc is now a highly successful and recognised player, both in the UK and internationally, in the field of non-fiction and fiction children's publishing.