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KKR is in superior talks to purchase US e-book writer Simon & Schuster from Paramount for greater than $1.6bn, stated individuals conversant in the matter, which might settle the destiny of the storied firm after years of uncertainty.
US regulators final 12 months blocked a proposed merger of Penguin Random Home and Simon & Schuster that might have created a mega-publisher within the books trade.
Paramount, which owns belongings together with the eponymous film studio and tv channels along with Simon & Schuster, has been purchasing the writer once more because it appears to concentrate on the streaming video enterprise.
Paramount goals to strike a deal within the coming weeks, stated individuals conversant in the matter. Different bidders embrace Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins and the investor Richard Hurowitz, who’s backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund.
A worth of $1.6bn could be decrease than the $2.2bn Penguin Random Home had agreed again in 2020. After the US justice division blocked that acquisition, Paramount is taking regulatory threat under consideration along with different components corresponding to worth, stated individuals conversant in the method. PRH paid Paramount $200mn in termination charges for the collapsed deal.
Final month KKR offered its stake in audiobook writer RBmedia to personal fairness agency HIG Capital, a deal led by Richard Sarnoff, the chair of its media funding follow. Sarnoff, who was beforehand an govt at Random Home, has been concerned in KKR’s effort to purchase Simon & Schuster, alongside companion Ted Oberwager.
Have been KKR to win the bid, it might grant inventory awards to the entire writer’s workers, because it did for RBmedia, stated an individual conversant in the matter.
Simon & Schuster, dwelling to authors corresponding to Edith Wharton and F Scott Fitzgerald, is likely one of the high 5 publishers within the US, a prized asset in a sector that has proven resilience to the disruption from Amazon and the pandemic.
Final 12 months, Simon & Schuster’s working earnings climbed 16 per cent to $248mn as revenues jumped 10 per cent to greater than $1.1bn. Chief govt Jonathan Karp described the 12 months as “extraordinary”.
The Wall Avenue Journal first reported that KKR was in superior talks to purchase Simon & Schuster.
Paramount and KKR declined to remark.
