Archives for July 2007

Little, Brown UK Buys Piatkus Little, Brown UK signed an agreement on Friday to acquire Piatkus Books, which will continue as an “independent imprint” within the group. Judy Piatkus will remain with the unit until the end of the year, and then will retire. Founded in 1979, Piatkus has annual sales of over $20 million (while Little, Brown has sales of over $100 million.) Piatkus will remain in its current offices until the end of October, when they will move into LB’s new offices by the Thames. With 28 employees at Piatkus, “Little, Brown will be asking the majority of […]

Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up   FICTION Debut Justin Peacock’s A CURE FOR NIGHT, in which a fallen lawyer […]

My Howler Yesterday I made one of my biggest errors in judgement ever in how the assorted Harry Potter news was handled/linked, and I apologize deeply to all who were surprised or upset and not warned away in time. There was no malicious intent and I didn’t think I was revealing anything since it was only an inference. (Others linked more prudently to the stories and didn’t think they were spoilers; the newspaper’s editor and reviewer say they revealed nothing. Every possibility and nuance is still on the table, and I didn’t read any of the true online spoilers, so […]

Scholastic Finishes with Slightly Better Quarter Scholastic reported slight improvement in fourth quarter income to $40.4 million, up $2 million from a year ago, on revenue of $612 million, up almost $11 million. In the release, CEO Dick Robinson explains that results would have been even better except that they weren’t: “We achieved our goals of improving operating efficiencies in school book clubs and other core businesses, driving growth in educational technology and reducing costs across the Company. As a result of this strong performance, earnings and free cash flow would have significantly exceeded prior year results, except for the […]

Merger Ripples Pearson is getting them from both sides. If the Dow Jones sale to Rupert Murdoch goes through, they will be under tremendous pressure to do something about Financial Times — either sell it, or partner up with someone to grow dramatically and compete. And with the Riverdeep Houghton/Harcourt merger pending, assuming its passes regulatory approval, Pearson will see its position as the dominant player in the US schools publishing threatened and will certainly move to defend, invest and grow there. Marketwatch More Potter Breaches Scholastic reports that they “recently learned that some individuals have received copies of Harry […]

It’s Official: Riverdeep Buys Harcourt Education US As previewed yesterday, then confirmed on our site and now everywhere, Reed confirmed the sale of Harcourt’s US Schools Education business to Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group for $4 billion ($3.7 billion in cash and $300 million in stock, which will leave Reed with an 11.8 percent stake in the parent company). Per our speculation, the Harcourt list will apparently be incorporated into Houghton Mifflin to “create a preeminent publisher with one of the industry’s most distinguished lists of authors.” Houghton ceo (and yes, former head of Harcourt Education) Tony Lucki will lead the […]