Katy Hershberger

Yesterday PRH svp of M&A Manuel Sansigre, who has reviewed 100 possible acquisitions at PRH and closed 26, testified on the details of developing PRH’s bid and “efficiencies model” for S&S. His testimony resumed Tuesday morning. When Viacom announced the sale of S&S in March 2020, Sansigre’s team began creating an efficiency model—analyzing duplications between the two companies—(and continued even when the sale was on pause through the spring and summer due to COVID) with publicly available info about S&S. Around Labor Day 2020, Viacom restarted the sale process and gave Sansigre access to raw S&S data—“P&Ls by country, by […]

The antitrust trial’s afternoon session continued with three literary agents taking the stand for the defense—Elyse Cheney, Andrew Wylie, and Gail Ross. They discussed auctions and negotiations, how they retain their power, and the effect of the possible merger on their clients. Cheney echoed what many other witnesses have said when asked why Big 5 publishers acquire books for $250,000+ more often than non-Big 5 do. “I think the non-Big 5, you know, are just not going to play in that sandbox too many times. They don’t have the same scale.” But when they do acquire ATSB, smaller publishers have […]