STM. Weak investor demand forced Springer Nature – the publisher of science magazines, technical and medical books and journals including Nature, Scientific American and the BioMed Central series – to cancel its planned 9 May IPO in Frankfurt at virtually the last minute. Although many of its venerable brands and publishing imprints are more than a century old, Springer Nature was formed in 2015 by the merger of the Holtzbrinck-owned Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan and Macmillan Education with Springer Science+Business Media (owned by private equity group BC Partners). Holtzbrinck and BC own 53:47 respectively of the €3bn group. Springer Nature, which claims to be the world’s largest English language academic book publisher with 13,000 new publications every year, last year reported EBITDA profit of €551m on revenues of €1.64bn. This week’s IPO had been intended to pay-down some of the company’s €3bn of debt and help BC Partners to sell down its shareholding to less than 20%. It is, therefore, believed that the alternative option of a share-sale to additional private equity or to trade buyers is now being explored. Some insiders have hinted, however, that a new IPO may instead be planned in London.
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Springer Nature cancels €3.5bn IPO
