European Commission Gives Go Ahead to Holtzbrinck Publishing (Macmillan Science, Nature) / Springer Science Merger

The approval was announced in this announcement from the European Commission Daily News:

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed joint venture between Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany, and Springer Science + Business Media G.P. Acquisition SCA (SSBM) of the Netherlands.
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, controlled by Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co. KG of Germany, is an international media company active in trade publishing, education and science, newspaper and magazines, as well as electronic media and services. SSBM, ultimately controlled by BC Partners Holdings Limited of the UK, is the parent company of SSBM Group, active mainly in the publishing of academic journals and books. The joint venture will combine all the activities of SSBM and its subsidiaries and most of the activities of Holtzbrinck’s business division Macmillan Science and Education.
The parties’ activities overlap mainly in the market for the provision of academic publishing and, marginally, in the markets for scientific online databases and workflow tools, marketing and communication as well as publishing related services. The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would not raise competition concerns given the parties’ moderate combined market positions resulting from the proposed transaction and the presence of a number of strong players in academic publishing as well as in the other related markets. The case was examined under the normal merger review procedure.

See Also: EC Public Case File (Holtzbrinck Publishing Group / Springer Science+business Media Acquisition)

Filed under: Academic Libraries, News, Publishing