Springer Science + Business Media

The biggest deals in the publishing industry in 2015 occurred outside of the trade sector. Unlike 2013, when the Random House–Penguin merger was completed, or 2014, when HarperCollins acquired Harlequin, the major trade houses did not make any major acquisitions last year. The biggest acquisitions in 2015 were in professional and educational publishing, led by…

The recent merger news about Macmillan, owners of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), and Springer, owners of Biomed Central and other properties, hit the market with plenty of force. It's a major consolidation, and one that ratchets the Macmillan higher education and journals growth strategy up by an order of magnitude. Now, along with Elsevier, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis, we have another multi-billion-dollar publishing behemoth on the market - the combined entity is valued at $5.8 billion.

Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners have reached an agreement to merge Springer Science+Business Media (owned by funds advised by BCP) with the majority of Holtzbrinck-owned Macmillan Science and Education, namely Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan and the global businesses of Macmillan Education.

The new group, which will have a turnover estimated at €1.5bn and 13,000 employees, will be under the joint control of Holtzbrinck and funds advised by BCP, with Holtzbrinck retaining a 53% share. The merger vaults the new group above McGraw-Hill (€1.4bn), Cengage (ca. €1.3bn)

Not too long ago, just making an app made news—especially in the book world, where the utility (and desirability) of book apps was a subject of some debate. As publishers have come to see books as multimedia brands, however, the terms of the debate have shifted, from whether book apps have a place to when. Apps can accomplish many things when executed right—from content enhancement to marketing to fun and games, helping publishers meet audiences where they are and build loyalty to books, brands and authors. Realizing this, a few companies have gotten pretty sophisticated in their, ahem, app-roach, as the following examples show.

Springer Science + Business Media has agreed to purchase Wolters Kluwer's pharmaceuticals-focused marketing and publishing services (MPS) unit.

In a time of significant flux in the industry, publishing executives are faced with more pressure than ever to examine their businesses and make decisions that will lead them to a profitable future. Book Business checked in with the leaders of publishing companies of various sizes and scopes—from Scholastic to Springer to Merriam-Webster to Triple Crown—to find out what their best business decisions of the year have been.

As digital content, in all of its forms, has become the new medium, publishers are grappling with new business models.

Two-thousand ten may be remembered as the year of the iPad, but if the recent buzz around e-readers is any indication, a rising content-delivery-device tide truly does lift all boats.

Check out the video highlights from the 2010 Publishing Business Conference & Expo, featuring comments from conference chairs Chris Foster, President & COO, GIE Media; Samir Husni, aka "Mr. Magazine" and founder and director of the Magazine Innovation Center; and Clint Greenleaf, president and CEO, Greenleaf Book Group, as well as from other attendees.

The Publishing Business Conference & Expo (PBC) today announced a roster of speakers for the 2010 show, highlighted by top executives from publishing companies including HarperCollins, Oxford University Press, Springer Science + Business Media, Pearson and DailyLit