In a ruling that was not totally unexpected, Judge Florence Pan chose to exclude the testimony from Manuel Sansigre, senior v-p and global head of mergers and acquisitions for Penguin Random House, ruling that his numbers were not independently verified as required by precedent. She was especially critical of the revenue projections, which she said could not be based on models from prior mergers or past experience. In addition, she said the model, which was developed in November 2020, but updated more than 100 times, was itself unreliable because of the numerous updates.
The dispute involves PRH’s claims that its acquisition of Simon & Schuster would create “cognizable merger-specific efficiencies.” But according to previous court filings, PRH’s expert witness, Edward Snyder, conceded in his testimony that he did not seek to independently verify the numbers he used in forming his opinion on such efficiencies…
