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German-headquartered global academic publisher of scientific journals and books, including the Nature family of journals.
German-headquartered global academic publisher of scientific journals and books, including the Nature family of journals.
Is paid by libraries and institutions under annual subscription and licence deals, and increasingly by authors or their funders who pay a publishing fee so that an article is free to read (open access). The shift to those fees is changing how it earns. Books and reference works add steadier sales. It listed in Frankfurt in 2024.
In one line: A German Elsevier/Wiley for academic publishing.
Moat: narrow (brand, switching costs, scale). Prestigious journal brands (Nature) and institutional subscription lock-in, but open-access mandates pressure the subscription model.
Headquarters: Berlin, Germany · Founded: 2015 · Employees: 9,424
Size Springer Nature AG & Co. KGaA (SPG.DE) is a Germany Communication Services company (Publishing: Books/Magazines) with a market value of $4.80B, the 72nd largest of 205 Germany companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at €21.50 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares gained 10.3%, against +2.5% for the median peer and +2.6% for the Germany market (cap-weighted) — 4th highest of 15 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 2.7% over the last twelve months (peer median -3.2%); the operating margin is 22.1% (peer median 9.7%).
Valuation It trades at 13.0× forward earnings against a peer median of 14.7× (6th cheapest of 15).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about -6% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is +3%, so the hurdle is -10 pp: the price already allows for a slowdown.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 4.5 points above its cost of capital (5.0% WACC).
Next results Next results expected around 23 Mar 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | €1.94B | €1.93B | €1.85B | €1.85B | €1.82B |
| Revenue growth | — | +4% | 0% | +2% | — |
| Gross profit | €847M | €851M | €785M | €782M | €736M |
| EBITDA | €689M | €697M | €636M | €632M | €578M |
| Net income | €328M | €356M | €68.3M | €15.5M | €201M |
| Free cash flow | €554M | €554M | €534M | €493M | €386M |
| Capital expenditure | €19.6M | €29.0M | €41.5M | €45.1M | €36.3M |
| Total debt | n/a | €1.51B | €1.89B | €3.65B | €3.80B |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Springer Nature AG & Co. KGaA SPG.DE | $4.80B | +10% | +3% | 22% | 13.0× | -6.5% |
| Relx REL.L | $70.4B | +23% | +2% | 32% | 21.3× | 1.8% |
| John Wiley & Sons WLY | $2.55B | +21% | 0% | 18% | 10.5× | 0.3% |
| Informa INF.L | $15.3B | +5% | +5% | 19% | 15.5× | 15.4% |
Peer set: Industry: the same industry and sector in any market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | SPG.DE | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | +5.1% | +9.7% | 6th lowest of 15 |
| 6-month return | +10.3% | +2.5% | 4th highest of 15 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -3.1% | -11.3% | highest of 15 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +2.7% | -3.2% | 4th highest of 15 |
| Operating margin | 22.1% | 9.7% | highest of 15 |
| Forward P/E | 13.0× | 14.7× | 6th cheapest of 15 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | -6.5% | -7.9% | 7th most demanding of 14 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | +3.4% | +1.2% | 5th highest of 14 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | -9.9 pp | -8.4 pp | 6th least demanding of 14 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | +4.5 pp | +4.0 pp | 6th highest of 15 |
| EV / EBITDA | 7.9× | 11.1× | cheapest of 5 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 1.7× | -4.8× | 2nd most indebted of 6 |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Springer Nature AG & Co. KGaA SPG.DE | Germany | $4.80B | +10% | +3% | 22% | 13.0× | -6.5% | +3.4% |
| Jiangsu Phoenix Publishing & Media 601928.SS | China | $3.60B | 0% | -13% | 7% | 15.4× | -7.9% | +0.5% |
| China Literature 0772.HK | Hong Kong | $3.18B | -9% | +12% | 2% | 34.3× | 40.8% | -3.6% |
| China South Publishing & Media 601098.SS | China | $3.11B | +2% | -1% | 11% | 13.6× | -20.2% | +3.8% |
| Kadokawa 9468.T | Japan | $3.02B | -2% | +3% | 2% | 101.9× | 25.1% | +6.1% |
| Central China Land Media 000719.SZ | China | $2.91B | +5% | -10% | 13% | 10.5× | -8.9% | -0.5% |
| Zhejiang Publishing & Media 601921.SS | China | $2.71B | +7% | -7% | 10% | 14.0× | -12.6% | +1.5% |
| John Wiley & Sons WLY | United States | $2.55B | +21% | 0% | 18% | 10.5× | 0.3% | -2.9% |
| Shandong Publishing & Media 601019.SS | China | $2.41B | +3% | -8% | 8% | 12.2× | -14.1% | +2.9% |
| China Science Publishing & Media 601858.SS | China | $2.31B | -23% | 0% | 10% | 31.4× | 25.2% | +3.6% |
| Pearson PSON.L | United Kingdom | $10.4B | +18% | +3% | 15% | 18.4× | 0.9% | +1.0% |
| Southern Publishing & Media 601900.SS | China | $2.09B | +27% | -3% | 16% | 11.6× | -10.2% | +4.7% |
| Changjiang Publishing & Media 600757.SS | China | $1.67B | +6% | -3% | 11% | 9.9× | -9.5% | +1.2% |
| China Publishing & Media 601949.SS | China | $1.64B | -2% | -10% | 3% | 15.9× | 6.3% | -2.1% |
| Chinese Universe Publishing & Media 600373.SS | China | $1.57B | -6% | -5% | -4% | 26.0× | n/a | n/a |