The creation of the world’s largest book company has come a major step closer with European competition regulators giving the green light to the merger of Fifty Shades of Grey publisher Random House and Penguin, home to authors including Jamie Oliver and Pippa Middleton.
The European commission said on Friday that it had unconditionally cleared the deal because the new combined venture, which will account for about one in four books sold in the UK, will “continue to face several strong competitors” including from Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins, supermarkets and online giant Amazon.
“The new entity Penguin Random House will continue to face competition from several large and numerous small and medium sized publishers,” the commission said. “The merged entity will furthermore face a concentrated retail base, such as supermarkets for print books and large online retailers for ebooks, like Amazon.”
Continue Reading via Penguin and Random House merger approved by EU regulator | Media | guardian.co.uk.
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