WIKIMEDIA, NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT AGENCYThe London-based publisher of venerated scientific journal Nature has plans to merge with one of the largest science publishers in the world, according to the two firms’ parent companies. Macmillan Science and Education, which publishes Scientific American as well as Nature, announced on Thursday (January 15) that it will merge with Berlin-based Springer Science+Business Media, the publisher of the Journal of Molecular Medicine, Clinical Pharmacokinetics, and Acta Neuropathologica, among many other titles. The merger, which still has to clear European competition regulators, was struck between Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, owner of Macmillan, and private equity firm BC Partners, which bought out Springer in 2013.
“The deal makes a lot of sense for both sides,” Claudio Aspesi, a media analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in London, told Nature. “From BC Partners’ perspective, there were a lot of questions about what they could do with Springer when they bought it, since much cost-cutting had already been done. Now we know how you can add value to that deal — add the most prestigious journals in the world. For Holtzbrinck, the idea is presumably that they get additional scale for Macmillan, which will give additional funds for any new plans.”
Springer is a giant in the academic publishing world, hosting almost 3,000 titles. Macmillan only publishes 160 journals, but among them are Nature and the associated research journals. “Combined, these ...
