Random House and Penguin completed their planned merger Monday morning,
creating the biggest and most powerful book publisher in the world.
The new company, called Penguin Random House, will control more than 25
percent of the trade book market in the United States, giving it unmatched
leverage against Amazon.com, a growing force in the industry. Bertelsmann and Pearson, the European owners of Random House and Penguin, respectively, announced the merger in October, saying that Bertelsmann would control 53 percent of the company and Penguin 47 percent. Since then, the merger has sailed through regulatory approvals in the United States and Europe, as well as China, Canada and other countries.
The new company would have more than 10,000 employees, 250 independent publishing imprints and about $3.9 billion in annual revenues.
