An announcement jointly made by Cengage CEO Michael Hansen and McGraw-Hill CEO Nana Banerjee is sure to raise questions among authors of both organizations. The two entities are planning a merger in 2020 that will, according to the company’s public release, “accelerate innovation and accessibility” and provide “seamless integration across our range of learning sciences, adaptive solutions, and learning tools.”

The combination will be accomplished through what is called an all stock merger, which the companies call “a rare merger of equals,” but the surviving company will be called McGraw-Hill and will be led by Hansen. In an interview on CNBC, there is a brief acknowledgement that Banerjee will stay on for a while, but will move on at an unspecified time after the merger is accomplished. The merger is expected to create the second-largest US textbook publisher, after Pearson.

Read the companies’ joint press release here, and learn more about the synergies they expect to create on this fact sheet.

It is too early to say what impacts to expect on authors of either company, but questions will no doubt accumulate rapidly. The Cengage author blog, where the merger was announced earlier today, is already abuzz with comments. One author, for example, focused on a statement from Cengage that “until the merger closes, we will continue to support you…”, apparently worried that it implies the support will end once the merger is accomplished.

TAA members Steve Gillen and Karen Morris will talk in depth about this topic at the annual conference in Philadelphia in June. They’ll talk about how to get the information you need and what to do in order to avoid being taken advantage of, as well as the upsides of a merger.

We will continue to update you on the TAA Blog, in the Newsletter, and other sources as more information becomes available.