Brill Merges With De Gruyter, Creating World's Largest Humanities Publisher

Information Industry News

Leiden, the Netherlands & Berlin, Germany. | October 12, 2023

Brill, a leading international academic publisher in the Humanities, Social Sciences, International Law and Biology founded in 1683, and De Gruyter jointly announce that they have reached a conditional agreement on a recommended all-cash public offer to be made by De Gruyter.

De Gruyter is a family-owned academic publisher with a global reach, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, since 1749. Its portfolio makes De Gruyter one of the world’s largest and most reputable Humanities publishers while extending to subject areas such as natural and social sciences, economics, technology, mathematics, architecture and design. Partnering with some of the most renowned scholarly and professional institutions around the world, De Gruyter is also a leading provider of publishing services for the academic community.

The transaction creates the leading academic publisher in the Humanities and presents a unique opportunity to accelerate organic growth and achieve necessary scale. With pro forma combined revenues of around EUR 1341 million and 750 employees, the combination will be well-positioned to offer the best possible service and infrastructure to its communities. The combination will jointly publish well over 3,500 books and 800 journals per year. The enlarged scale will accelerate the transition to new business models such as open access and finance investments in technology for end-to-end workflows and a state-of-the-art market-facing (content) platform. Furthermore, it will make the business more resilient, allow more effective sales & marketing and increase the ability to attract and retain talent. The combination of two centuries-old publishing houses will be branded De Gruyter Brill, signalling the importance of the strong heritage and family background of both companies.

In addition, the strategic rationale is underpinned by similar cultural values. Both companies are deeply rooted in the academic community, built on a long tradition, with quality and stakeholder relations at their core. Upon the closing of the transaction, De Gruyter Brill headquarters will be in Berlin, Germany, while Brill’s office in Leiden, the Netherlands, will be one of the largest offices of the new combination and will continue to have material substance, both in number of people and in terms of responsibilities. De Gruyter’s shareholders take a strategic view on the business and are dedicated to ensuring the new combination stays independent for many more centuries to come.

Brill’s management board (the “Management Board”) and supervisory board (the “Supervisory Board, and together with the Management Board, the “Boards”) consider that the Offer is in the best interests of the Company and promotes the sustainable success and long-term value creation of its business, having taken into account the interests of the Company's stakeholders. The Offer provides the Securityholders with an attractive premium and immediate value.

Peter Hendriks, Chief Executive Officer of Brill: “Today’s announcement marks a historic step for Brill. We attach great value to our long heritage, and foster our independence as a publishing house. At the same time, we are convinced that, in order to serve our communities, scale is essential to keeping Brill relevant and competitive going forward. By joining forces with De Gruyter we can make a leap in our growth strategy and create a publishing house with revenues of around EUR 134 million. Together we will benefit from the reach, scale and resources of our joint businesses.”

Jasmin Lange, Chief Publishing Officer of Brill: “De Gruyter is a well-respected player in our industry combining a long heritage with a strong focus on innovation. Succeeding in Open Access publishing demands an outstanding author publishing experience and we are convinced of De Gruyter’s capabilities in this respect. Joining forces enables us to make the substantial and continued investments in technology, operations, sales and quality staff required by the ongoing transition to digital publishing. Both being independent, with a strong heritage and family background, we believe we are a great strategic match, promoting the long-term sustainable success of Brill.”

Theo van der Raadt, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Brill: “We have known De Gruyter for a long time and know them as an innovative player in our market with solid operations and a very strong family shareholder base, safeguarding the independence of the Company. We have carefully evaluated the interest De Gruyter has expressed in Brill and following a thorough analysis, we concluded that the offer is in the best interest of Brill and its stakeholders, including the Securityholders. The Supervisory Board therefore unanimously supports the transaction and recommends the offer by De Gruyter to its Securityholders, which we believe will secure Brill’s strong market position in the long run.”

Carsten Buhr, Chief Executive Officer of De Gruyter: “Brill is a highly regarded publishing house in the Humanities and Social Sciences with a strong strategic alignment with De Gruyter, and we are enthusiastic about the clear logic of this transaction. De Gruyter and Brill are both committed to publishing excellent research, and our publishing programs complement each other perfectly. We believe combining our businesses will provide us with the scale to finance the necessary investments in technology, workflows and platforms. This will enable us to further improve the author experience and our services to libraries and academic and professional institutions worldwide. We believe the combination has the ability to accelerate our combined growth rate and we look forward to working with Brill on a clear business plan from a shared vision and joint ambition: to create the leading academic publisher in the Humanities.”

Rüdiger Gebauer, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of De Gruyter: “We greatly value Brill’s long tradition of high-quality publishing made possible by its dedicated and professional employees and its outstanding network of authors and academics. Brill plays a major role in the academic discourse and has an enormous societal impact through its publications. By joining forces with De Gruyter, we firmly believe that Brill’s heritage, tradition and valuable program can fully be safeguarded. Moreover, De Gruyter’s shareholders are devoted to ensuring that De Gruyter Brill remains independent for centuries to come. I look forward to welcoming Brill’s team to De Gruyter and to celebrating many shared successes.”

The new combination with a strong strategic rationale

Brill and De Gruyter are both successful medium-sized academic publishers operating globally and focusing mainly on research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and have continuously grown, both organically and through acquisitions, over the last decades. As the market further digitalizes, and moves to open access publishing, scale in operations has become an increasingly important factor in staying competitive, financing investments in the future, and capturing efficiencies. As Brill and De Gruyter are operating in overlapping academic subject areas, markets and regions, the combination offers strong opportunities for sustainable growth. Considering the developments in the academic publishing market, creating scale through entering into a combination with a strategic partner is an attractive solution for both Brill and De Gruyter to secure a strong market position in the long run.

As joint businesses, Brill and De Gruyter will have the strong global sales organization required to handle the growth in package licensing deals and navigating the complexities of open access transformation. The combined company will be headquartered in Berlin, Germany while Brill’s office in Leiden, the Netherlands, will be one of the largest offices of the new combination and will continue to have material substance, both in number of people and in terms of responsibilities. De Gruyter Brill will continue to be present in global offices and employ around 750 employees. Thanks to its cultural and strategic proximity, the combination will be able to save costs by lowering its complexity, accelerating digital transformation and leveraging operational synergies.

The combination will have a core executive team (the “Core Executive Team”), which shall be composed of De Gruyter’s current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Finance Officer (CFO), Carsten Buhr and Christopher Radloff, and Brill’s current Chief Publishing Officer (CPO), Jasmin Lange. The management board of the combination (the “Combination Management Board”) shall comprise seven members and be composed of the Core Executive Team and a Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), a Chief Operations Officer (COO), a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and a Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), who will be appointed as soon as possible in accordance with the “best person for the job”- principle. It is the intention to fully integrate the businesses as soon as possible after settlement.

The existing rights and benefits of the employees of Brill will be respected, as will the Company's current employee consultation structure and existing arrangements with any employee representative body within the Company. The combination shall continue to foster a safe, diverse, inclusive and engaging work culture to attract, develop and retain people. De Gruyter Brill will be a workplace where employees can excel and deliver value to customers and other stakeholders. By offering attractive training options and perspectives for career progression, the combination will be an employer of choice for highly-skilled talent. De Gruyter Brill will support its employees to reach their full potential in the diverse and inclusive culture of a family-owned company.