German academic house De Gruyter has acquired Netherlands-based Brill for €51.5m, in a deal expected to complete in the second quarter of 2024.

The transaction, via an all-cash public offer, “creates the leading academic publisher in the humanities and presents a unique opportunity to accelerate organic growth and achieve necessary scale”, the publishers said in a joint statement, enabling the transition to new business models such as Open Access and technology investments for new workflows. The move will also finance investment in a state-of-the-art content platform.

The new academic house will be branded De Gruyter Brill, “signalling the importance of the strong heritage and family background of both companies”. The combined companies will have pro forma revenues of around €134m and 750 employees, publishing over 3,500 books and 800 journals per year. Once the transaction is complete, the new company will be headquartered in Berlin, although Brill’s current office in Leiden will be the second largest office of the new combination and will “continue to have material substance in terms of responsibilities”.

The joint announcement said the strategic rationale for bringing together the two companies was underpinned by similar cultural values, with both companies “deeply rooted in the academic community, built on a long tradition, with quality and stakeholder relations at their core”.

Peter Hendriks, c.e.o. of Brill, said: “Today’s announcement marks a historic step for Brill. We attach great value to our long heritage, and foster our independence as a publishing house. At the same time, we are convinced that, in order to serve our communities, scale is essential to keeping Brill relevant and competitive going forward. By joining forces with De Gruyter, we can make a leap in our growth strategy and create a publishing house with revenues of around €134m. Together we will benefit from the reach, scale and resources of our joint businesses.”

Carsten Buhr, c.e.o. of De Gruyter, said: “Brill is a highly regarded publishing house in the humanities and social sciences with a strong strategic alignment with De Gruyter, and we are enthusiastic about the clear logic of this transaction. De Gruyter and Brill are both committed publishing excellent research and our publishing programmes complement each other perfectly. We believe combining our business will provide us with the scale to finance the necessary investments in technology, workflows and platforms. This will enable us to further improve the author experience and our services to libraries and academic and professional institutions worldwide. We believe the combination has the ability to accelerate our combined growth rate and we look forward to working with Brill on a clear business plan from a shared vision and joint ambition: to create the leading publisher in the humanities.”

Brill was founded in 1683 in Leiden, and publishes in the humanities, social sciences, international law and biology, with offices in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the US and Asia. It publishes more than 360 journals and 2,000 new books a year. Family-owned De Gruyter has been headquartered in Berlin since 1749, with offices in Boston and Beijing and across Europe, publishing in the humanities, social sciences, economics, technology, mathematics, architecture, design and more. It has eight publishing brands, including De Gruyter Mouton and De Gruyter Oldenbourg, as well as over 120 gold Open Access journals.