American publisher takes over largest publishing house in the Netherlands | Economy

S&S publishes books by well-known authors such as Anthony Doerr and Nicci French. It is also the first time that the American publisher has acquired a non-English publishing house.

The takeover should make the foreign market more accessible for Dutch books, and vice versa. “We would like to offer our writers a larger and international platform,” says VBK director Geneviève Waldmann.

Major publishing houses have been making acquisitions abroad for some time. For example, Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the world, has acquired publishing houses in Spain, Germany, South America and India in recent years.

All VBK publishing houses in the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as sister companies Thinium and Bookchoice, will be acquired by S&S. It is not known how much the takeover cost.