Ardent readers of “A Course in In-Memory Data Management” and “Economics for the Curious” will be able to buy both from the same publisher after a deal to merge Macmillan Science and Education with Springer Science+Business into a €1.5 billion giant with 13,000 staff.
BC Partners, the Mayfair private equity house behind Springer, and the German family-owned firm Holtzbrinck, whose Macmillan Science and Education includes Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan and Macmillan Education, reckon the tie-up is a “strategic milestone in the more than 150 year history of both businesses.”
The Macmillan business, whose brands date back to 1843, also publishes the Nature science journal and Macmillan Education Language Learning, the world's third-biggest maker of English language publishing.
Springer Science+Business Media’s portfolio includes scientific, technical and medical books.
Derk Haank, chief executive of Springer, said the deal will give individual buyers more choice.
It will also bring economies of scale that will allow for investment in new products, he added.
The deal is expected to be approved by competition authorities by the end of June.
