(5 Jan 2020) John Wiley & Sons, Inc. today announced the acquisition of Hindawi Limited, an innovator in open access (OA) publishing and one of the world’s fastest growing scientific research publishers, for a total purchase price of $298 million. The acquisition of Hindawi significantly increases Wiley’s position as a global leader in research by adding quality, scale and growth to the company’s open access publishing program.
Open access is a rapidly growing scholarly publishing model that allows peer-reviewed articles to be read and shared immediately, making important research broadly available. As a leader in open access publishing, Hindawi has played a critical role in advancing gold open access, an OA model in which validated articles are made immediately available for reading and re-use following the payment of a publication fee.
Hindawi, privately held and headquartered in London, has a robust portfolio of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific, technical, and medical journals, a highly efficient publishing platform, and a low-cost infrastructure. Wiley’s acquisition of Hindawi unlocks significant and profitable new growth by tapping deeper into the fast-growing OA market and by delivering innovative publishing services to researchers, societies, and institutions around the world. For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020, Hindawi is projected to generate approximately $40 million in revenue with year over year growth of 50%.
“The acquisition of Hindawi enables Wiley to move farther and faster toward our goal of meeting the world’s urgent and escalating need for new knowledge,” said Brian Napack, President and CEO, Wiley. “Hindawi is a true pioneer in the industry, empowering researchers with a fully digital, user-friendly publishing process that gets their life-changing, peer-reviewed discoveries out into the world faster and more efficiently.”
The addition of Hindawi’s journals doubles Wiley’s gold (pure) OA journal portfolio and will increase author retention by giving researchers more options to publish within Wiley titles. Its cutting-edge technology combined with Wiley’s innovative platforms and services will enhance the publishing experience for authors, editors, and reviewers, while expanding the platform and service offerings that Wiley provides to its network of society and publishing partners. Hindawi strengthens Wiley’s growing position in the global research industry, particularly in China – the world’s fast-growing research market.
Read the press release in full here.
Further Reading: Publisher’s Perspective’s interview with Jay Flynn on the acquisition of Hindawi
