Candover & Cinven purchase of Springer approved in US

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=3337377

Candover Gets Nod for Bertelsmann Deal
Tue August 26, 2003 09:11 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - British private equity firm Candover Investments CDI.L
said on Tuesday the U.S. Department of Justice had cleared its acquisition
of science and trade publisher BertelsmannSpringer, announced in May.
Candover, which joined with fellow British-based buyout firm Cinven to
make the 1.05 billion euro ($1.14 billion) offer to Germany's Bertelsmann
AG BERT.UL, said the U.S. had also given the go-ahead for the two firms
to merge the unit with their own scientific publisher, Kluwers Academic
Publishers (KAP).

The newly merged company, to be called Springer, will create the world's
second-largest publisher of scientific, technical and medical titles, the
private equity firms said in a statement.

They added that Springer will have revenues of about 880 million euros.

The deal is expected to close on September 15.

Candover and Cinven acquired Netherlands-based KAP from publishing house
Walters Kluwers in January 2003 for 600 million euros. In May, they
announced a deal to acquire BertelsmannSpringer, but have been waiting for
regulatory approvals to close the deal ever since.

The transaction was cleared in Europe in July after Candover and Cinven
agreed to remove French competition concerns by offering to sell
Bertelsmann's French medical publishing business.

The two firms said they would each have a 50 percent stake in Springer and
would plan to control the business for the next three to five years -- a
typical timeframe for private equity investments.

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