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RSS feedsScientific, technical and medical (STM) publishing group Springer has made an approach for Taylor & Francis parent Informa – the STM and business publisher. The move is likely to have been made by Springer’s principal shareholders – private equity groups Candover and Cinven.
Informa confirmed the approach , reporting that the rival group has made a “highly preliminary approach… regarding a possible offer for the entire share capital of the company”. It added: “Discussions are at an early stage and, consequently, there can be no certainty that an offer will be made.”
Informa confirmed the approach after recent press speculation and said that a further announcement would be made in due course.
Candover and Cinven confirmed to financial newspapers that they were working with investment bank UBS on the deal proposal and have debt financing from Barclays Bank in place.
The deal took the market by surprise, more so for its formation. Publishing market analysts have predicted Informa would attempt to acquire Springer, not the other way round.
Informa was involved in a number of acquisitions in 2005, buying up Triangle Journals, an Oxfordshire-based company, and the Institute of Physics book title list. But its most significant acquisition was the takeover of IIR Holdings, an events company. Informa paid £784m in cash for IIR to Conservative Party Peer, Lord Laidlaw.
In the summer of last year, Informa dropped T&F from the trading name of the merged operation. T&F lives on as an academic brand alongside Routledge, also part of the group.
Springer was created in 2003 from the merger of BertelsmannSpringer and Kluwer Academic Publishers, which the private equity backers bought for £1.6bn. The London-based venture capital backers acquired the two companies with a view to creating a force to rival Reed Elsevier, the world’s largest STM publisher.
