Quote:
Originally Posted by binaryhermit
I'm sure the US will sign off on it no questions asked, I'm curious what the EU has to say.
|
Most likely nothing.
It's a German company taking over an American one.
The opposite might get pushback but not that.
(Look up the sordid affair about the GE and Honeywell merger.)
Mergers are judged on the basis of market power and market impact. On the *whole" relevant market. As I said above, the RH and Penguin merger was rubberstamped on both sides of the pond practically overnight.
https://www.writerswrite.com/u-s-jus...roves-21420131
Quote:
The U.S. Department of Justice has approved the merger of Penguin and Random House. The New York Times reports that the Justice Department did not impose any conditions on the merger, which it often does if there is an antitrust issue. Random House is owned by German media company Bertelsmann and Penguin is owned by British giant Pearson. The European Commission must still approve the deal which would create the world's largest book publisher.
Thomas Rabe, CEO of Bertelsmann, said in a statement, "This positive first decision by one of the antitrust authorities is an important milestone on the path to uniting two of the world's leading publishing companies into a truly global publishing group."
|
Bold mine. If that got no pushback, why would buying S&S matter?
As for the EU:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europ...143914959.html
Quote:
The European Union cleared the merger of publishers Random House and Penguin on Friday, saying it does not pose a risk to competition.
The EU said the merger doesn’t threaten competition. In a press release, the European Commission said of its investigation:
“The Commission assessed the impact of the transaction on the upstream markets for the acquisition of authors’ rights for English language books in the European Economic Area (EEA) and worldwide, and on the downstream markets for the sale of English language books to dealers in the EEA, in particular in the UK and Ireland. The Commission found that on both types of markets the new entity Penguin Random House will continue to face competition from several large and numerous small and medium sized publishers.
|
Seriously, adding S&S's market share isn't going to change much in the market.
Consumers, who by and large don't even know who publishes what, will notice nothing.