Germany's Bertelsmann To Buy Simon & Schuster for US$2.175 Billion - Publishing Perspectives

Today Panzer decided to make a stop at the Publishing Perspectives site. With no digging at all our speedy kitty found a post about Simon and Schuster and Bertelsmann.

According to the post by Porter Anderson, it was announced today that Penguin Random House (PRH) will buy Simon and Schuster for $2.175 Billion. PRH is actually owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Writers groups immediately asked for regulatory review of the sale. In the US the Authors Guild expressed its opposition to the sale on the grounds the merger would unfairly impact authors with less markets for their work. In Canada the Association of Canadian Publishers asked for a review of the sale on the grounds of "whether the sale violates the Competition Act ...". At the end of the post there are links to other information about the various publishing companies.

Who's getting too big now?

Panzer says, "Hmm ... People complain about Amazon getting too big? What about Bertelsmann buying up traditional publishers? Two now. Who's next?"

Note: This is a humongous post. Bring a thermos of tea, eight muffins, six chocolate chip cookies (biscuits), and a brownie for today's reading selection.

To read the post tootle over to Bertelsmann