Leiden, 5 December 2016
Brill, the international scholarly publisher, announces the intent to acquire the publishing houses Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn (Germany).
Brill and the owners have come to an agreement about the acquisition of Ferdinand Schöningh GmbH & Co. KG and Wilhelm Fink GmbH & Co. Verlags-KG, Paderborn, including the imprint Konstanz University Press.
The transaction includes highly esteemed journals and book series in History, Theology, Literature and Cultural Studies, Media Studies and Philosophy. In total, the publishing list comprises of 5,500 book titles and 7 journals, growing by 330 new titles each year. The annual turnover is more than € 3 million, and the deal is expected to have a positive effect on Brill’s earnings per share in 2017.
Brill’s CEO Herman Pabbruwe says: “Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink are high-quality academic publishing houses with a long tradition in serving the humanities and social sciences. This acquisition will strengthen Brill’s program in several key subject fields. It will also expand our already strong position in Germany, the largest market for academic publications in Europe. We have great respect for the scholarly community and publishing tradition in Germany and will continue and intensify our good relationships with authors, universities, libraries, funders and trade partners in the German speaking countries.”

Brill intends to invest in further digitizing the program and establishing a strong international distribution of the list providing authors with global visibility and additional services. Brill has its headquarters in Leiden and will maintain the office location in Paderborn, Germany, in addition to the offices in Boston and Singapore.
The acquisition is planned to take effect as per 1 January 2017. The final agreement is contingent upon a positive outcome of the remaining due diligence procedure.
Herman Pabbruwe, CEO