Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group

Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck is a Stuttgart-based publishing holding company which owns publishing companies worldwide. Holtzbrinck has published everything from Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" to classics by Agatha Christie, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway and John Updike.

Newspapers owned by this group include: "Die Zeit" (Germany's largest opinion-oriented newspaper), and Berlin's "Der Tagesspiegel".

Established by Georg von Holtzbrinck in 1948, the group first began as a German book club. In the 1960s, it purchased Droemer, Kindler, Rowohlt and S. Fischer Verlag, two German publishing companies. In 1985, it acquired the retail book division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, naming it the Henry Holt Book Company. One year later, the company acquired "Scientific American" magazine for $52.6 million. In 1994, it purchased a majority interest in Farrar, Straus & Giroux from retiring Roger W. Straus, Jr.. A year later, it purchased a 70% majority interest in The Macmillan Group, and then the remaining shares in 1999.

In March 2006, Holtzbrinck forced Tor Books, which is owned by Holtzbrinck, to stop making its books available as eBooks via Webscriptions because of concerns regarding the lack of Digital rights management (DRM). These concerns abated in 2007 and selected Tor titles will soon be available as e-books via Baen and a variety of other online retailers. The company also received a good deal of attention, when it bought the leading German social networking platform StudiVZ in January 2007.

Holtzbrinck has total annual sales of 2.1 billion euros (as of 2005); 49% of sales are in Germany and 23% in North America. It had 2005 earnings before taxes of 142 million euros, and a total of 14,000 employees.

Chairman of the group is Dr. Stefan von Holtzbrinck. John Sargent is CEO of Macmillan, the company that unites the US-based businesses of the group. [ [http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/06/0604/0604BookView.html Book View] , "Publishing Trends", April 2006]

Among its subsidiaries and imprints are:

Germany

* S. Fischer Verlag
** O.W. Barth
** Wolfgang Krüger
** Argon Verlag
** Scherz Verlag
*** Fretz & Wasmuth
* Rowohlt Verlag
* Kiepenheuer & Witsch (85%)
* Verlagsgruppe Droemer Knaur (50%)
* Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt GmbH
** Verlag J. B. Metzler
* Die Zeit
* Der Tagesspiegel

USA

* Macmillan (formerly called Holtzbrinck Publishers)
** Farrar, Straus and Giroux
***Faber & Faber
** Henry Holt and Company
***Holt Paperbacks
***Metropolitan Books
***Times Books
***Owl Books
** Palgrave Macmillan
** Picador
** Roaring Brook Press
*** First Second Books
** St. Martin's Press
** Tom Doherty Associates
*** Tor Books
*** Forge Books
** Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishing Group
*** W.H. Freeman
*** Bedford/St. Martin's
*** Worth Publishers
* Scientific American, Inc.

UK

* Macmillan Publishers (100%)
** Palgrave Macmillan
** Pan Macmillan
*** Macmillan
*** Pan Books
*** Picador
*** Macmillan Children's Books
*** Campbell Books
*** Priddy Books
*** Boxtree
*** Sidgwick & Jackson
** Nature Publishing Group
** Macmillan Education
** Macmillan India (India)

References

External links

* [http://www.holtzbrinck.com/ Official site]
* [http://www.readster.de/tag/Holtzbrinck/ Holtzbrinck news on readster]
* [http://us.macmillan.com/splash/about/index.html Official site of Macmillan US]