(Reuters) – Book publisher Simon & Schuster has received a buyout bid from investor Richard Hurowitz, with backing from Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Reuters had in February reported that Paramount Global, the owner of Simon & Schuster, was making a fresh attempt to sell the publisher months after the collapse of a planned $2.2 billion sale to Penguin Random House.
The U.S. Justice Department had last year sued to stop the Penguin deal as a combination of the two heavyweights would translate to control over nearly half the market for publishing rights to blockbuster authors such as Stephen King and Danielle Steel.
Hurowitz is the publisher of a magazine called The Octavian Report and is currently the CEO of Octavian & Company. He is the founder of New York-based investment company Octavian Advisors, which was sold to private equity firm TPG in 2013.
Second-round bids for Simon & Schuster are due in mid-July, the WSJ report said.
HarperCollins Publishers and KKR & Co are among the bidders for the book publisher, the Journal had previously reported.
(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)