Statement of Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp, Regarding the Sale of Simon & Schuster to Bertelsmann

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson has commented on ViacomCBS’s announcement regarding the sale of Simon & Schuster to Bertelsmann:

“There is clearly no market logic to a bid of that size - only anti-market logic. Bertelsmann is not just buying a book publisher, but buying market dominance as a book behemoth. Distributors, retailers, authors and readers would be paying for this proposed deal for a very long time to come. This literary leviathan would have 70 percent of the US Literary and General Fiction market. There will certainly be legal books written about this deal, though I wonder if Bertelsmann would publish them.”

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