Humanities publishers Brill and De Gruyter agree merger

Two leading European publishers of humanities and social science research are merging to create a company covering 800 journals.

Berlin-based imprint De Gruyter and the Dutch publisher Brill will form a new company, De Gruyter Brill, after the German firm agreed a deal to buy the Leiden business for €51.5 million (£45 million), it was announced on 12 October.

The new organisation will have combined annual revenues of €134 million and 750 staff, and will jointly publish more than 3,500 books and 800 journals annually.

The deal creates one of the largest publishers in the humanities, with Brill operating about 280 journals in the humanities, law and social sciences prior to the agreement.

The Dutch company is one of the world’s oldest academic publishers, having been founded in 1683, making it slightly older than De Gruyter, whose history goes back to 1749.

However, the transaction “presents a unique opportunity to accelerate organic growth and achieve necessary scale”, said a statement from both companies.

“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,” it said.

“It will enable the company to further improve the author experience as well as services to libraries and institutions worldwide, better face market challenges, allow more effective sales and marketing, and increase the ability to attract and retain talent,” it added, claiming that “the strategic rationale” for the merger “is underpinned by both companies’ complementary publishing programs and similar cultural values”.

“De Gruyter and Brill are deeply rooted in the academic community, with long traditions and a shared commitment to publishing excellent research as trusted partners of scholars,” the statement continued.

The newly merged company will be headquartered in Berlin, but Brill’s office in Leiden, the Netherlands, will “continue to have material substance, both in number of people and in terms of responsibilities”, the statement said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com