A PYMNTS Company

US: Textbook merger may bring up costs

By  |  July 29, 2019

The skyrocketing cost of a US college education could get even more expensive if two top college textbook companies combine as planned, especially if they succeed in starving off a scrappy competitor: used textbooks.

The proposed merger of textbook publishers McGraw-Hill Education and Cengage Learning Holdings, announced in May, would reduce the number of major textbook publishers from four to three. McGraw-Hill is owned by Apollo Global Management.

Sources close to the two companies say their combined market share is 30% at most. That differs from figures by market research firm Simba Information, which puts Cengage at 22% and McGraw-Hill at 21%, behind leader Pearson with 40% of the market by revenue, and ahead of Wiley at 7%.

Full Content: Reuters

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