Random House and Penguin Combine

Last week it was announced that the book publishers Penguin and Random House would join together to become the largest book publisher in the world. The new project will be titled Penguin Random House. It will exclude Random House’s trade publishing in Germany and will allow Penguin to use its brand name in education markets throughout the world. “This combination with Random House, a company with an almost perfect match of Penguin’s culture, standards and commitment to publishing excellence, will greatly enhance its fortunes and its opportunities,” says Marjorie Scardino, chief executive at Pearson. “Together the two publishers will be able to share a large part of their costs to invest more for their author and reader constituencies and to be more adventurous in trying new models in this exciting, fast-moving world of digital books and digital readers.” The partnership will be finalized in late 2013.