News | Penguin Random House | Barcelona/New York, 07/02/2014

Santillana: Acquisition completed

One year to the day after the closing of the Penguin Random House merger on July 1, 2013, the book publishing group has announced another milestone: Penguin Random House has completed its acquisition of Santillana Ediciones Generales, announced in March of this year. The company acquired from the Spanish media company Prisa is now part of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial (PRHGE), which will continue to operate under this name in Spain, Latin America, and now also Portugal. The headquarters of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial will remain in Barcelona. Further to this announcement, Penguin Random House said that its previously announced acquisition of Objetiva, Santillana’s trade-publishing business in Brazil, is expected to be completed later in the second half of the year.

The acquired company is being merged with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, extending PRHGE's publishing business in the Iberian and the Latin American markets. The Group's growth potential in Latin America will be enhanced with Santillana's imprints in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Uruguay, alongside the longstanding PRGH publishing houses there. The imprints of Santillana will enable PRHGE to establish a publishing presence in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Central America.

Núria Cabutí Brull, will lead the newly expanded company, continuing as CEO of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. Armando Collazos, formally Global Director of Prisa Ediciones, will become Executive Advisor to Cabutí, and to the Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial management team.

The heart of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial will be its more than two dozen publishing imprints, each of which will retain its respective publishing identity and programs. Together, they will publish 1,500 titles a year, focusing on Spanish-language originals and Spanish translations of adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction, hardcovers, paperbacks, and e-books.

Announcing the completion of the transaction, Markus Dohle said: “Exactly one year ago to the day, we strengthened the breadth and diversity of our worldwide English-language publishing with the formation of Penguin Random House, and today, we celebrate the significant new opportunities for our international Spanish-language publishing with the completion of the acquisition that unites Santillana’s Ediciones Generales with Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. It is a dream combination, a partnership of two wonderful traditions that will be advantageous for everyone; above all, our authors, who will benefit from great publishing choices with all the distinctive, independent imprints of Grupo Editorial and Santillana, and readers, who will enjoy the widest range of outstanding adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction. Together, our company’s talented and dedicated publishing teams will foster a universal passion for books by championing and advancing the reading experience for our society.”

The trade-book imprints of the new, enlarged Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial will be Aguilar, Alamah, Alfaguara, Altea, Arena, Beascoa, Caballo de Troya, Cisne, Collins, Conecta, Debate, Debolsillo, Fantascy, Fontanar, Grijalbo, Literatura Random House, Lumen, Manderley, Montena, Nube de Tinta, Objectiva, Plaza & Janés, Punto de Lectura, RHFlash, Rosa dels Vents, Sudamericana, Suma de Letras, and Taurus.

Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial will boast an unrivalled roster of Spanish and international authors, including Nobel prize winners Alice Munro, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel García Márquez, José Saramago, J.M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, Doris Lessing, V.S. Naipaul, and Gunter Grass; Cervantes Award winners such as Juan Marsé, Jorge Edwards, Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Sergio Pitol; Spanish Literature Award winners Javier Cercas, Javier Marías, José María Merino and Luis Mateo Díez, and the current Prince of Asturias Award winners Juan Lavado "Quino" (Communication and Humanities) and John Banville (Literature). Spanish and international bestselling authors published by Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial include Isabel Allende, Florencia Bonelli, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Joël Dicker, Umberto Eco, Albert Espinosa, Laura Esquivel, Ildefonso Falcones, Ken Follett, Carlos Fuentes, Elizabeth Gilbert, John Grisham, E L James, Stephenie Meyer, Kate Morton, Julia Navarro, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Paul Preston, Marcela Serrano, Hiromi Shinya and Manuel Vicent.

Núria Cabutí Brull called yesterday’s closing “a historic day for Spanish-language book publishing,” and added: “We celebrate uniting two great companies and their publishing programs to achieve a tremendous new level of creativity and potential for our authors, booksellers, colleagues, and readers. Our chief mission will be to publish books in traditional and emerging formats, so that we can best make available our authors’ fiction and nonfiction to the widest possible readership worldwide.”

The closing of the deal brings with it the following changes to the new senior management team for Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial:

  • Miquel Illa will become Chief Financial Officer and Distribution Director
  • Marta Grau is appointed head of Human Resources and Publishing Services. Carlos Ciria will oversee IT, as well as Organization and Processes.
  • Carmen Ospina will lead Digital Strategy and New Businesses.
  • Patxi Beascoa will be PRHGE’s head of Sales & Marketing for Spain. He will also oversee the company’s operations in Portugal, which will be headed by Clara Capitão.
  • Javier López Llovet will continue as General Director for Argentina and Latin America, as well as oversee the Group's activities in Peru, which will remain the responsibility of Mercedes Gonzalez Cuenca.
  • Augusto di Marco will assist him as Special Sales and Export Director
  • General directors: Hernan Rosso (Chile), Elena Gómez (Colombia), Luis Sica (Uruguay) and Roberto Banchik (Mexico). Banchik will also oversee Grupo Editorial’s activities in the U.S., headed by Silvia Matute. The company will retain Santillana's U.S. publishing and sales office in Miami.
  • Claudio López Lamadrid will be Publisher for the Group, and for Literatura Random House.
  • Pilar Reyes will be Publisher for the Alfaguara and Taurus imprints.
  • Núria Tey, Publisher for Plaza & Janés, Grijalbo, Conecta, and Rosa dels vents, will also lead the Aguilar and Suma de Letras imprints, with their respective teams.
  • Juan Díaz, Publisher of Debate, Lumen, Reservoir Books, Debolsillo, and the children's books division, will also be responsible for Punto de Lectura, Alfaguara (children's and young readers books), Altea, and El País Aguilar.