Under the terms of the agreement, Penguin and Random House will combine their businesses in a newly-created joint venture named Penguin Random House. Bertelsmann will own 53% of the joint venture and Pearson will own 47%. The joint venture will exclude Bertelsmann’s trade publishing business in Germany and Pearson will retain rights to use the Penguin brand in education markets worldwide.
Worldwide, this will mean the new entity will be a juggernaut, controlling some 30% of the market. Penguin is pretty much the best-known publishing brand in the world, and Random House is the leader in the UK and the USA. It will mean that the combined entity will enjoy considerably more heft with booksellers. For authors and agents, though, it's not quite the best thing in the world; they'll have one less publisher to sell to.We asked the folks at Penguin India and Random House India what this meant for the local teams. Penguin India's VP, Marketing & Corporate Communications, Hemali Sodhi told us "It's going to be business as usual for the next nine to twelve months while integration plans are discussed." Carline Newbury, RHI's VP, Marketing & Publicity, said it was "too early for me to be able to comment."
First Published: Oct 29, 2012, 14:50
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