Penguin Random House

Penguin Random House LLC is a British-American multinational publishing conglomerate, created on July 1, 2013, through the merger of Penguin Books and Random House. Along with Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House is considered one of the "Big Five" English-language publishers. In 2020, Bertelsmann became the sole owner of Penguin Random House after a 2019 purchase. The integration of its own German-language publishing group, Verlagsgruppe Random House, added 45 imprints to the company, for a total of 365 imprints. As of 2021, Penguin Random House employed about 10,000 people globally and published 15,000 titles annually in all genres and formats. Penguin Random House comprises Penguin and Random House in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, and India; Penguin in Brazil, Asia and South Africa; Dorling Kindersley worldwide; and Random House's companies in Spain, Hispanic America, and Germany. On November 25, 2020, The New York Times reported that Penguin Random House was planning to purchase Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS (later known as Paramount Global) for $2.175 billion. However, on November 2, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice sued to stop the deal on antitrust grounds, a suit that eventually succeeded on October 31, 2022. The deal formally collapsed on November 22, 2022.