NEWS 

Indie publishers voice concerns about Bertelsmann’s pending acquisition of Simon & Schuster BY ELLEN MICHELLE

THE NEWS THAT BERTELSMANN, the German owner of multinational giant Penguin Random House, is set to acquire another multinational powerhouse – Simon & Schuster – shocked many of Canada’s independent publishers, who anticipate this will intensify the competition indies already face in this country. Random House had already merged with Penguin in 2013; the new sale, which would see PRH acquire S&S for $2.175 billion U.S., is set to close in the second half of this year, pending regulatory approval.

“It’s not far-fetched to worry about small presses being unable to survive in a market that grows ever more concentrated,” says Laura Rock Gaughan, executive director of the Literary Press Group of Canada. “We have to look at the impact on the health of a vital cultural industry.”