The merger of education publishers McGraw Hill and Cengage, announced yesterday (May 1), will create the sixth largest publisher in the world with combined revenues in 2018 of $ 3,220 million: $ 1,597 million from McGraw-Hill and 1.624 million dollars from Cengage.
The resulting new company, which will be called McGraw Hill, will continue to be very far from its rival in the textbook sector, Pearson, which had revenues of $ 5,360 million in 2018, but will be a very important competitor in both US markets as in the United Kingdom. Pearson is currently in number two of the top 10, behind RELX (Elsevier and Lexis-Nexis), with $ 5.6 billion.

Despite what it may seem, British industry commentators suggest that the McGraw-Hill / Cengage merger says more about the challenges of the market in which publishers operate than about being a sign of strength. Cengage CEO Michael Hansen, under whose leadership Cengage launched his Cengage Unlimited full-access textbook subscription company, will occupy the leadership of the company resulting from the merger. He has already expressed that: “The new company will offer a wide range of the best content in its class ─ distributed through digital platforms at an affordable price.” Together (McGraw Hill and Cengage), we will begin an era in which all students can afford the quality learning materials necessary to succeed, regardless of their socioeconomic status or the institution they attend. ” At the launch of the merger, the companies underlined their commitment to “continue and expand their Inclusive Access and Unlimited programs, with the opportunity to combine content and expand the program offer once the merger is over.”