London Times re. Springer IPO

[Liblicense-L Listowner <liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu>]

(London) Sunday Times, 16 January 2005

Publisher plans 1.4bn float
Mark Kleinman
 
THE WORLD's second-largest academic publisher, Springer Science + Business
Media, has appointed investment banks to advise on a flotation that could
value the company at more than 2 billion (1.4 billion).  Candover and
Cinven, the private-equity houses that own the Frankfurt firm, have hired
ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS to study strategic options
for the group. These are likely to include bulking it up by bolt-on
acquisitions ahead of a float.
 
Derk Haank, Springer's chief executive and a former director at Reed
Elsevier, its larger rival, is keen to see the company float by 2007 at
the latest.

A source close to Springer said the exact timing of an initial public
offering (IPO), which is likely to take place in London, had yet to be
agreed but that it could come as early as the middle of next year.

The source declined to elaborate on the roles to be played by each
investment bank, but said: There is no doubt about Haank's intentions.

An IPO will hand significant paper windfalls to Haank and fellow Springer
board directors, including Martin Mos, the chief operating officer who
also joined from Reed Elsevier, and Ulrich Vest, the finance chief.

Candover and Cinven acquired Bertelsmann Springer from its parent, the
German media powerhouse Bertelsmann, for 1.05 billion in May 2003. The
private-equity firms then merged it with Kluwer Academic Publishers, which
they acquired for 600m a year earlier.

The combined group has 70 publishing companies and almost 1,500 journals
specialising in academic fields such as science, medicine, engineering and
transport.

Springer employs more than 5,000 people in 18 countries and last year had
consolidated sales of 833m. Its British operations are based in Surrey and
oversee the publication of 20 journals.

Among the company's most significant acquisitions was the purchase in 1974
of Vieweg, the publishing house that brought Albert Einstein's theory of
relativity to public attention in 1917.

Other notable scientists who have had work published under the Springer
banner include Marie Curie, who discovered radium and inspired a leading
cancer-research charity.
 
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