Finance

With bids for Simon & Schuster moving on to second rounds, Harper Collins remains an active bidder, the WSJ reports. Private equity company KKR is also among the still-active bidders, multiple sources told PL and the WSJ, with the next bids expected in mid-July. Neither Lagardere nor its new owner Vivendi bid for S&S, people familiar with the sale process told PL. Vivendi was the underbidder behind Penguin Random House during the first sale of the publisher in 2020. While Harper is bidding, ceo Brian Murray had testified last August that their bid in 2020 “was not close” to Bertelsmann’s […]

On Friday, the European Commission formally approved Vivendi’s long-planned acquisition of Lagardere, following the fulfillment of their “commitments” to sell the Editis publishing division, as well as the celebrity magazine Gala. Next, “The Commission will assess the suitability of buyers proposed by Vivendi in the context of a separate buyer approval procedure. Pursuant to the commitments, Vivendi can only implement the acquisition of Lagardère following the Commission’s approval of a suitable purchaser.” In April, Vivendi struck a put option agreement to sell Editis to Czech Republic-based International Media Invest. In March, based on preliminary offers to purchase Editis from multiple […]

Penguin Random House has acquired the publishing assets of once high-flying start-up Callisto Media, in a deal led (and announced) by their partner Sourcebooks, which will manage the Callisto catalog and publishing program. PRH will incorporate Callisto’s data analysis toolset into PRH’s existing infrastructure and tech stack. The deal closed earlier today, for undisclosed terms. Callisto Media ceo and founder Benjamin Wayne and his “key leaders” will join Sourcebooks and a “portion of the organization” will join PRH on the data side. Wayne acknowledged there will be some “redundancies” in finance and various other corporate functions as part of the […]