German publisher Springer Science+Business Media may list on the stock market in the near future, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) reported on Saturday. "This could be the case in a few months," chief executive Derk Haank was quoted as saying in the weekly paper, adding the company's "prospects were never better" with profit and sales growing at 5-7 percent annually.
Reuters had reported earlier this month that Springer Science's private equity owners were considering either selling the publisher or other ways to refinance the 1.72 billion euros ($2.2 billion) debt used to back their 2.3 billion euro acquisition in 2009.