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Paramount announced a deal Monday to sell Simon & Schuster, home to Stephen King, Colleen Hoover and many bestselling nonfiction authors, to the private investment giant KKR for $1.62 billion only months after a $2-billion-plus sale to publishing giant Penguin Random House was nixed last October.
The companies announced the all-cash agreement on Monday. “We are pleased to have reached an agreement on a transaction that delivers excellent value to Paramount shareholders while also positioning Simon & Schuster for its next phase of growth with KKR,” said Bob Bakish, President and CEO of Paramount Global.
After the deal closes, Simon & Schuster will become a standalone private company and with Jonathan Karp, President and CEO, and Dennis Eulau, COO and CFO, still at the helm. KKR also announced plans to support launch a broad-based equity ownership program to provide the publisher’s more than 1,600 employees an opportunity to own shares in the company.
The earlier sale to Penguin Random House was blocked by a federal judge last year, who ruled that the proposed merger would violate antitrust laws by having the potential to “substantially” lessen competition “in the market for the U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.”
While this will likely still be an industry-shaping deal, the decision to sell to a buyer outside of the “Big Five” publishers — which include Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Hachette Book Group — may ensure the new deal goes through without Justice Department intervention.
“Simon & Schuster’s nearly 100-year history is a testament to the enduring value of creative expression through the written and spoken word,” said Ted Oberwager, who leads the gaming, entertainment, media and sports verticals within KKR’s Americas Private Equity business, in a statement. “We are thrilled to invest behind Jon and the immensely talented organization at Simon & Schuster to support their mission of delivering marquee content to readers around the world,”
Richard Sarnoff, Chairman of Media at KKR, added, “We see a compelling opportunity to help Simon & Schuster become an even stronger partner to literary talent by investing in the expansion of the company’s capabilities and distribution networks across mediums and markets while maintaining its 99 year legacy of editorial independence. We also believe the opportunity to create an ownership culture within one of the world’s top publishers has enormous potential to create value for all of Simon & Schuster’s stakeholders.”
In a letter to Simon & Schuster employees, Karp explained that discussions with KKR had been initiated this spring. He emphasized the potential for growth, the promise of increased investment and the equity deal.
“Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for all of us,” Karp noted in the letter. “As you have done so well throughout this process, let’s keep our noses in the books and our focus on delivering the best possible results for our authors and our distribution clients. That focus has been integral to our success and it’s the reason we can celebrate this outcome.”
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