In September 2020, German media group Bertelsmann (which owns Penguin Random House) announced that they were interested in acquiring Simon & Schuster. According to Bertelsmann chief executive and chairman Thomas Rabe, "We've been the most active player on the consolidation of the book publishing market in the last 10 years. We combined Penguin and Random House very successfully to create by far the largest book publisher in the world, actually the only global book publisher. Given this position we would, of course, be interested in Simon & Schuster."