New Year, New News

As part of our community, it’s likely you will have seen the news today about the proposed joint merger between parts of our parent company, Macmillan Science and Education, and Springer Science+Business Media. Perhaps you are also wondering what this means for us at Digital Science and for our portfolio companies.

Digital Science will not be joining the new joint venture.  Instead we will remain wholly owned by our parent company, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (HPG). Upon completion of the necessary regulatory approvals later this year, HPG will also be the majority shareholder for the newly formed joint venture.

For our businesses this is exciting news as we graduate from being a technology incubator to a full, independent Holtzbrinck company.

What does this mean for our customers and community?

In essence, it’s business as usual. There are no changes to existing contractual agreements or to our internal organisation.  Our model and approach has always differed from Macmillan’s more established science and education businesses and this will continue to be the case. As before, Digital Science will aim to be an agent of change in research and publishing. Under the new structure we will keep – and indeed enhance – our autonomy, agility and independence of spirit.

Our position will continue to allow us to collaborate with all relevant companies in the newly formed joint venture whilst maintaining our independence and ability to collaborate with other publishers and partners – something that we have done very successfully to date and intend to continue.

What next?

The joint venture will only be officially formed after regulatory approval has been granted in relevant jurisdictions, which we anticipate happening by the middle of 2015. Digital Science’s ambitious plans and priorities for 2015 remain.

If you have any questions, do feel free to get in touch. You can also stay tuned to our blog to see how things progress.

Happy New Year!

Timo