1 March 2021
Brill, an international academic publisher in the humanities, social sciences and international law, has announced that it has reached agreement with the shareholders of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage (“V&R”) to acquire all business assets of V&R. The German publishing house, founded in 1735 and headquartered in Göttingen, has a long-standing international reputation in the Humanities, especially in the fields of Theology and History. Since 2017 Böhlau Verlag, another humanities publisher, based in Cologne and Vienna, is also part of the V&R group. Total revenue of the V&R group amounted to c. 10 million euro in 2020.
The German-language countries constitute one of the most important and stable Humanities publishing markets in the world. By adding V&R to its portfolio, Brill will become one of the leading Humanities publishers in Germany with over 850 new book titles per year and a journal portfolio of ca. 70 journals published out of Germany and Austria. This includes both English and German language content.
The German operations of V&R will be combined with Brill’s existing publishing activities in Germany. In 2021, Brill will generate an annualized revenue in Germany and Austria of around 16 million euro.
“Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht is Brill’s twin in Germany: a very long family tradition, excellent reputation among authors and scholars and leading in the Humanities, mainly in the same fields as Brill” says Brill’s CEO Peter Coebergh. “With the acquisition Brill reaches its strategic objective, set with the acquisition of Schöningh & Fink in 2016, to create a second home market in Germany and generate a revenue in Germany of more than 10 million euro within 5 years.”
"Through Brill's previous acquisitions in Germany, Brill will promote the importance of V&R by digitizing content, increasing sales in international library markets, and expanding the open access model. Optimizing workflows and increasing collaboration with authors and partner institutions will also strengthen its market presence," according to the former owners of V&R.
The acquisition of V&R is expected to positively contribute to Brill’s EBITDA and underlying Earnings Per Share (EPS) in 2021 and be accretive to EBITDA and EPS attributable to shareholders as of 2023, following completion of integration activities in 2022. The transaction will be effectuated through a purchase by Brill’s subsidiary Brill Deutschland GmbH and Brill’s new subsidiary Brill Österreich GmbH of all assets and liabilities pertinent to the business. The transaction will be financed with cash and an acquisition facility provided by Rabobank NL. The acquisition will be effective as of March 1, 2021 and results from V&R will be included in the consolidated figures of the Brill Group per that date.