Holtzbrinck (German: Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co. KG) is a German publishing company headquartered in Stuttgart, that owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it owns one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies.
In 2015, it merged most of its Macmillan Science and Education unit (including Nature Publishing Group) with Springer Science+Business Media, creating the company Springer Nature. Holtzbrinck owns 53% of the combined company.
Contents
History
The history of Georg von Holtzbrink's publishing activities during the Nazi years 1933-1945 has been controversial. After World War II, Georg von Holtzbrinck, a former member of the Nazi party, reestablished a group in 1948, beginning as a German book club. In the 1960s, it purchased the German publishing companies Droemer, Kindler, Rowohlt and S. Fischer Verlag. 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 Macmillan Publishers, and then the remaining shares in 1999. In 2001, Pearson sold the Macmillan trademark in the United States (gained with the acquisition of Simon & Schuster educational and professional division, which included the assets of former Macmillan Inc.) to Holtzbrinck.
In March 2006, Holtzbrinck forced Tor Books, which is owned by Holtzbrinck, to stop making its books available as e-books via Baen Ebooks because of concerns regarding the lack of digital rights management (DRM). The policy was later changed and Tor titles became available as DRM-free e-books in 2012. The Tor UK label in Britain (and hence the EU) does the same. The company also received a good deal of attention when it bought the then leading German social networking platform StudiVZ in January 2007.
Holtzbrinck has total annual sales of 1.99 billion euros (as of 2024); 29% of sales are in Germany and 53% in North America. It had 2024 earnings before taxes of 293 million euros, and a total of 14,000 employees.
The current chairman of the group is Stefan von Holtzbrinck. Jon Yaged is CEO of Macmillan, which represents the group's trade publishing activities, primarily in the US.
Subsidiaries and imprints
The publishing group is divided into four business areas:
Science: This area comprises scientific publications and research-related services, particularly through Springer Nature and Digital Science.
Consumer Books: The books segment includes the group’s trade publishing activities, including Macmillan Publishers, Pan Macmillan, and the German Holtzbrinck book publishers.
Education: The education segment is represented by Macmillan Learning, which develops educational content and digital learning solutions.
News Media: This area comprises the group’s journalistic activities, which are bundled in DIE ZEIT Publishing Group.
In Germany:
S. Fischer Verlag
FISCHER Krüger
Argon Verlag
FISCHER Scherz
Rowohlt Verlag
Kiepenheuer & Witsch (85%)
Verlagsgruppe Droemer Knaur (50%)
O.W. Barth
Die Zeit (50%)
In the United States:
Using the Macmillan name:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Faber & Faber (formerly; ended partnership in 2015)