Separate bidding to continue at S&S and PRH after Bertelsmann deal

Penguin Random House (PRH) and Simon & Schuster imprints will continue to bid competitively against each other once the acquisition of S&S by Bertelsmann has closed, PRH c.e.o. Markus Dohle has said.

Dohle (pictured) told US literary agents in a Zoom meeting that imprints from the two publishers would be treated as "external parties in auctions for bidding purposes, post closing". 

He said: "This means very concretely, the auction will continue, even if the only imprints left are a PRH imprint and an S&S imprint." He stipulated that the c.e.o. may step in "for governance reasons" if the bidding tops $1m, Publishers Lunch reported. 

Last November, PRH's owner Bertelsmann announced it had reached a $2.2bn deal to buy Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS, with S&S managed as a separate publishing unit under the PRH umbrella. The UK's Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) cleared the acquisition of the company after carrying out an investigation, but the closing of the acquisition is still to be approved by the Department of Justice.