Last week, the prospectus for Springer Nature's upcoming IPO was published. Some high level coverage appeared here for example. ft.com/content/1d43d9… I'm scanning the underlying document this afternoon and will post a few key excerpts.
"...cooperation with partners includes our long-standing business relationship with Digital Science...with respect to software for the simplification and streamlining of the research process." [page 57]
"Holtzbrinck Publishing Group may also compete with Springer Nature through its entity Digital Science, which is its strategic growth division investing in early stage ventures in the research and science industry. All the businesses of Digital Science are publisher agnostic..."
"...and therefore independent...In the future, Holtzbrinck...could decide to no longer provide products and services through Digital Science to Springer Nature..."
"...However, Springer Nature could receive services comparable to the ones currently provided by Digital Science through other providers." [120]
"Digital Science is divided into four business segments...which contributed approximately €14 million, €3.1 million, €0 million, and €1.5 million, respectively, to Digital Science's 2016 revenue." [120] Can these be safely summed up to €18.6 million in total 2016 revenue?
"Despite our ongoing efforts to take recourse against e-piracy platforms, users' reliance on libraries, one of our main customer groups in the Research segment, could be reduced as a result of the availability of our materials through unauthorized sources." [1]
"We believe that our subscription customers access SciHub in parallel, but not as a replacement to, our traditional subscription services. To our knowledge the availability of our content through these aggregators has not resulted in subscription terminations." [6]
"In 2017, our average number of full-time equivalent employees was 12,621." [10] Note that this includes not only Research but also Professional and Education.
"In 2018, Springer Nature and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group entered into a business opportunities agreement with the intention to reduce and mitigate potential conflicts of interests. The agreement requires Holtzbrinck...to present certain business opportunities...to us." [22]
"Funding available to customers in the Research segment, such as libraries, is typically limited and based on annual budgets. Libraries use a significant portion of their available financial resources for purchasing content..."
"...In their purchasing decisions, libraries seek to secure as much "must have" content as possible at an acceptable price, leading to competition among Academic Research publishers for a share of libraries' budgets." [58]
Argh I messed up the threading.
"The higher the volume [of content] and the higher the usage of the article covered by the relevant subscriptions, the more librarians are generally willing to pay for such subscription..."
"...Further, we constantly seek to enlarge our offering and provide additional content, which positions us well to motivate price increases..."
"...During the period the periods under review, usage increased faster than subscription revenues. Subscription revenues per download based on full-text downloads via SpringerLink was €2.05 in 2017." [59]
Global spending on academic and scientific content in 2016 [88] 
Springer Nature discloses its agreement with ResearchGate. [O-1]
Springer Nature became the majority shareholder in Research Square earlier this year [100]
