The privately-owned German media company Bertelsmann is believed to be seeking to add ViacomCBS’s publishing house Simon & Schuster to its Penguin Random House subsidiary.
ViacomCBS had touted the company for sale ahead of lockdown but the pandemic has delayed the process. Simon & Schuster was founded in 1824 and publishes 2,000 titles each year, including the authors Stephen Kind, Joseph Heller, Ernest Hemingway, Annie Proulx and Hillary Clinton.
Its 2019 revenues were $814m in 2019 with operating profit of $143m. Valuation for the business is expected to exceed $1bn.
