At a time of mega-mergers and flashy high-tech corporate hookups, the biggest U.S. book publisher’s plan to buy the fourth-largest for a mere $2.2 billion may seem somewhat quaint. But the deal represents such a key test for the Biden administration's antitrust policy that the Justice Department is calling an out-of-the-ordinary witness to The Stand: author extraordinaire Stephen King.
In Penguin Random House’s proposed acquisition of rival Simon & Schuster, which would reduce the “Big Five" U.S. publishers to four, the administration is burnishing its antitrust mettle and its fight against corporate concentration.
