Julius Springer founded
Springer-Verlag in Berlin in 1842 and his son Ferdinand Springer grew it from a small firm of 4 employees into Germany's then second-largest academic publisher with 65 staff in 1872. The company's
canting logo is a
chess knight;
Springer (literally "jumper") is the word for the piece in German. In 1964, Springer expanded its business internationally, opening an office in New York City. Offices in Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, and Delhi soon followed. In 1999, the academic publishing company
BertelsmannSpringer was formed after the media and entertainment company
Bertelsmann bought a majority stake in Springer-Verlag. They merged the company in 2004 with the
Dutch publisher
Kluwer Academic Publishers (successor of
D. Reidel, Dr. W. Junk, Plenum Publishers, most of
Chapman & Hall, and
Baltzer Science Publishers) which they bought from
Wolters Kluwer in 2002, to form Springer Science+Business Media. In 2006, Springer acquired
Humana Press. Springer acquired the
open-access publisher BioMed Central in October 2008 for an undisclosed amount. In 2009, Cinven and Candover sold Springer to two private equity firms,
EQT AB and
Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, confirmed in February 2010 after the competition authorities in the US and in Europe approved the transfer. In 2011, Springer acquired Pharma Marketing and Publishing Services (MPS) from Wolters Kluwer. In 2013, the London-based private equity firm
BC Partners acquired a majority stake in Springer from EQT and GIC for $4.4 billion. In January 2015,
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group /
Nature Publishing Group and Springer Science+Business Media announced a
merger. in May 2015 they concluded the transaction and formed a new joint venture company,
Springer Nature with Holtzbrinck in the majority 53% share and
BC Partners retaining 47% interest in the company. ==Products==