Penguin Random House Completes Acquisition of Santillana Ediciones Generales from Santillana
Newly Expanded Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial Senior Management Team Announced By CEO Núria Cabutí Brull
(July 1, 2014)—Penguin Random House, the global trade book publisher 53% owned by Bertelsmann and 47% owned by Pearson, today announced it has completed the process to purchase Santillana Ediciones Generales, the trade book publishing business, from Santillana, the trade book-publishing business majority-owned by PRISA. The acquired company 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.
Penguin Random House’s 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.
Today’s news was announced by Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle and Santillana CEO Miguel Angel Cayuela.
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.
Markus Dohle said, “Exactly one year ago to this 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 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 said, “On this historic day for Spanish-language book publishing 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. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial will put people first, and at the center of all our priorities and responsibilities. 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.”
With the closing of the deal, Cabutí announced the new senior management team for Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, which draws upon executives from both sides of the company:
At the corporate level, 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 also will 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, reporting to Núria Cabutí. He will be assisted by Augusto di Marco, who will be Special Sales and Export Director, as well as oversee the Group’s activities in Peru, which will remain the responsibility of Mercedes Gonzalez Cuenca.
Also reporting directly to Javier López Llovet will be these general directors: Chile: Hernan Rosso; Colombia: Elena Gómez; Uruguay: Luis Sica; and Mexico: Roberto Banchik. Banchik will also oversee PRHGE’s activities in the U.S., headed by Silvia Matute. The company will retain Santillana’s U.S. publishing and sales office in Miami.
Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial publishing leadership appointments also were announced today by Cabutí, who said, “I am looking forward to the many great books we all will publish together.”
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.
Penguin Random House (http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/) is the world’s most global trade book publisher. It was formed on July 1, 2013, upon the completion of an agreement between Bertelsmann and Pearson to merge their respective trade publishing companies, Random House and Penguin, with the parent companies owning 53% and 47%, respectively. Penguin Random House comprises the adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction print and digital trade book publishing businesses of Penguin and Random House in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa, and Penguin’s trade publishing activity in Asia and Brazil; DK worldwide; and Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial’s Spanish-language companies in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile. Penguin Random House employs more than 10,000 people globally across almost 250 editorially and creatively independent imprints and publishing houses that collectively publish more than 15,000 new titles annually. Its publishing lists include more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read authors.