ViacomCBS announced Wednesday morning that it has a definitive agreement to sell Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House for $2.175 billion in cash, “from existing liquid funds.” The transaction is expected to close in 2021, with S&S ceo Jonathan Karp telling staff that will “likely” happen “in the second half of 2021 at the earliest.” It is subject to regulatory approvals — primarily in the US — and competing bidders such as HarperCollins parent News Corp. have already declared they believe “it will clearly be a serious antitrust issue.” Bertelsmann has already indicated it does not expect approval issues. […]
M&A
News Corp CEO Says PRH Would Face Antitrust Fight Over Simon & Schuster
News Corp. ceo Robert Thomson said in answer to a question at the company’s annual meeting he has no doubt that Penguin Random House would face major regulatory issues in the US if they were to prevail in the bidding to acquire Simon & Schuster. “It will clearly be a serious antitrust issue if Bertelsmann acquires Simon & Schuster,” Thomson said. “However cute and clever the structure, if Bertelsmann is a beneficiary, it will be a book behemoth. And this will certainly be a profound antitrust issue for the entire book industry and no doubt for authors around the world.” […]
The Top Bidders for Simon & Schuster Are…Exactly As Expected
“Three people familiar with the process” have confirmed to the NYT that parents of the two largest trade publishers in the US — Penguin Random House and HarperCollins — are the two leading bidders for Simon & Schuster at this point. Which is exactly as was expected, since the company will yield greater financial efficiencies if it is acquired by another, larger trade publisher. “At least one of the offers has topped $1.7 billion,” two of the people said to the paper, with final bids due prior to Thanksgiving. If true, that would be a substantial premium over prices for […]
Penguin Random House Parent Bertelsmann Controls More US Book Printing with Quad Acquisition
Berryville Graphics, a division of Bertelsmann Printing, has acquired the two book manufacturing plants that Quad has been trying to sell for a year now. Berryville has bought the facilities in Fairfield, PA (370,000 square feet) and Martinsburg, WV (380,000 square feet, which focuses on paperbacks). The transaction closed on October 31. It’s a significant expansion for Berryville, which Dun & Bradstreet estimated had sales of about $120 million in 2019. The money-losing Quad book printing business — acquired from World Color, previously known as Quebecor — had annual sales of about $200 million. They sold their big, 1 million-square-foot […]
People, Etc.
At Writers House, Maria Aughavin has been promoted to evp, finance; Albert Araneo moved up to evp, business affairs; and Cecilia de la Campa is now evp, global media & licensing. Jonathan Morris has been promoted to production coordinator at Random House Children’s. Rights At the end of the year Penguin Random House Canada is taking back in-house the sub-rights business that they turned over to The Cooke Agency International in 2009, in “a strategic shift…in order to drive international growth across our publishing.” Adrienne Tang has been hired as vp, subsidiary rights, reporting to ceo Kristin Cochrane. Tang was at Kids Can […]
LSC Sale to Atlas Holdings Wins Court Approval
LSC’s sale to Atlas Holdings has been approved by the bankruptcy court. An affiliate of Atlas Holdings, with support from LSC’s secured creditors, will acquire substantially all of the company’s assets, according to this morning’s press release. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2020, subject to closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. LSC ceo Thomas J. Quinlan III said, “We are confident that through this partnership with Atlas, LSC will be uniquely well-positioned to strengthen and grow our market-leading position and provide our customers with the same high standards of quality, reliability and innovation,” and thanks employees […]