Trends in U.S. Trade Book Publisher Mergers and Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity involving book publishers is a continuing feature of the U.S. commercial publishing landscape. Over the last 6 years, from the beginning of 2014 through the end of 2019, there were 120 control transactions involving U.S. trade publishers of all sizes: on average, twenty transactions annually. This activity has proceeded subject to random annual variation uncorrelated to industry performance or to macroeconomic factors; in the last 2 years activity has accelerated, with 27 completed transactions in 2019. Historically, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, trade publishing M&A activity stalled from the valuations achieved in 2006–2007, even as activity remained relatively steady. We anticipate that in the wake of the pandemic M&A activity will gradually increase as publishers seek stronger partners and increased scale. In the first 5 months of 2020, eight transactions were announced or completed, and ViacomCBS set the stage for a major transaction by announcing its intention to divest Simon & Schuster.