EU Regulators to Approve Random Penguin Merger

27.03.2013 Nate Hoffelder 3 Comments

If the rumors now circulating are true then the world’s largest publishing behemoth is one step closer to existence.

Reuters is reporting this morning that the merger between Penguin and Random House is likely to be approved by EU regulators:

Bertelsmann and Pearson are set to win unconditional EU regulatory approval for a plan to merge their publishers Random House and Penguin, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The merger has already been approved in the US, in Australia, and in New Zealand, but there is no news yet that Canadian regulators have signed off on the deal.

I am looking forward to the day this merger is finalized. Random Penguin Solutions will be the single largest publishing conglomerate and control about 25% to 30% of the global English-language consumer book market, depending on who is doing the counting. That is an important figure, not just because of the sheer size.

No, I like it because it represents peak publishing. Random Penguin Solutions will likely not have as large of a market share 3 years from now. I expect self-published and indie published titles to account for a growing segment of the book market over the next few years (doesn’t everyone?), and I also expect that the major publishers will respond to their diminished market share by merging into even larger and more unwieldy conglomerates. This will hopefully make them easier to topple when the time comes.