In 2012, the publishing sector has seen several corporate movements with an increasingly significant presence of Planeta and Ramdom House.
The publishing market is concentrated in 3 large companies:Planet, Rush, and Random House.
The Spanish publishing market maintains three dominant operators, Planeta (with imprints such as Planeta, Seix Barral, Destination, Critique, Ariel, Paidós, Martínez Roca andEspasaand participation in the Grup 62 and Tusquets), Random House Mondadori (currently controlling Plaza&Janés, Grijalbo, Debate, Mondadori, Lumen and Beascoa and PRISA (SAntillana and ALfaguara)). The first two groups, at present, also have common interests: they share 50%'s ownership of Readers' Circleare partners in the digital distributor Libranda and in the as yet unfinished online project of Nubicotogether with Telefónicaand RTL, owned by Bertelsmannis a shareholder in the television station controlled by Planeta, Antena 3.
"The sector is also tending towards greater concentration. In April PRISA announced that it was negotiating with Random House the sale of its publishing division due to its critical financial situation, which is forcing it to sell profitable assets. Random House also bought during 2012 the 50% of its joint venture with Mondadori 4M and Grupo Planeta the 50% of Tusquets publishing house", explains Diego Gutierrez, expert in corporate finance at Abra Invest.
Catalan-language publishers unite to strengthen themselves
In 2012, the publishing houses merged Angle Editorial with the vallenca Cossetània Edicions under the name of 9 Grup Editorial. The integration was the result of a collaborative process initiated in 2008 as a result of the problems shared with the distributor Arc de Berà, one of the first victims of the crisis in the world of books in Catalan. Now, despite the decision taken, all the imprints will continue to exist and Jordi Ferrer, publisher of Cossetània, will take over the management of the project. The operation makes this group the second largest in terms of titles published in Catalan.
Also in 2012, andl Grup 62 increased its presence in the world of Catalan-language publishing. The group controlled by Enciclopèdia Catalana, Planeta andLa Caixa acquired a 50 per cent stake in Dèria Editors. Among the titles published by Dèria are several books-interviews with political figures such as Ernest Lluch, Pasqual Maragall and Heribert Barrera. It has also published Economia liberal per a no economistes i no liberals, by the economist Xavier Sala i Martín y Cambó, a portrait of one of the most important Catalan politicians of the early 20th century.
This was not Grup 62's first purchase, as in April 2011 it had already taken over the 50% from Eumothe publishing house promoted by the University of Vic. This operation allowed it to enter the university textbook and textbook business. The operation was also channelled through a capital increaseThe amount was not disclosed.
Specialist publishers are also concentrating on
The Canadian multinational Thomson Reuters specialising in information for companies, law firms and professionals in the legal and legal field, in 2012 incorporated the publishing company Lex Novabased in Valladolid.
The multinational had entered Spain with the acquisition of Aranzadi and had carried out an operation of a complementary service such as that of the software company for law firms. Jurisoft. In this case it seems more like a market share acquisition than a service complement," says Diego Gutierrez.
