The UK’s Serious Fraud Office fined Macmillan $18.3 million over illegal payments made by its education division to secure contracts in East and West Africa between 2002 and 2009. Macmillan said a report had identified “concerns over receipts from certain contracts” by its Education unit in Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. The company settled with the World Bank last year over a similar situation in Southern Sudan. “We will not tolerate any form of potentially unlawful behavior,” Macmillan ceo Annette Thomas said in a statement. “Fortunately, it has been established that these issues were confined to a limited part of our […]
Archives for July 2011
Court Approves Borders Liquidation Sales As BAMM Offer Details Get Worked Out
Borders’ liquidation sales were formally approved by the bankruptcy court on Thursday afternoon, with those sales starting today. The stores will accept gift cards until liquidation is completed. Borders Bucks will be honored through July 31 only, and Borders Reward Plus discounts will be granted through August 5, limited to an additional 10 percent off any purchases. Judge Glenn also provisionally approved the sale of 30 stores to Books-A-Million, including furniture, fixtures, equipment, and inventory, and obligates BAMM to pay all cure costs (including taxes, rent, and CAM charges) should the sale go through. But the sale requires the approval […]
People
Hodder & Stoughton is expanding the editorial staff at their Sceptre imprint. Drummond Moir has been hired as editorial director, commissioning both fiction and non-fiction. He’s been at Heinemann for the past three years. Suzie Dooré will extending her role as editorial director at Hodder to acquire fiction for the imprint. (She already edits Chris Cleave, one of Sceptres’ bestselling authors.) Both report to Carole Welch. Writers House has learned that a series of fake emails claiming to be from WH agent Jodi Reamer have been circulating to self-published authors this week. “These emails, which contain a number of false […]
At Liquidation Hearing, BAMM Offers To Buy As Many As 35 Borders Stores
Borders lawyer Andrew Glenn called it “a very bittersweet day” at Thursday morning’s bankruptcy court hearing, as he again reiterated the company’s disappointment that no full going concern bids emerged by the July 17 deadline. But in what he characterized as a “late breaking development”, Books-a-Million has indeed offered to take over the leases, inventory, furniture, and other related items on 30 stores, with an option on a further five stores. The offer would preserve anywhere from between 1000 and 1500 jobs, Glenn said, and he asked the court to proceed and later approve of the agreement, which Borders said […]
Borders Reported June Sales of $90 Million And $20.6 Million in Losses
In advance of Thursday morning’s court hearing on liquidation plans, Borders filed its operating report for the month of June. The company reported total revenue of $90.1 million (of which $86.6 million were sales) and an operating loss of $20.6 million, of which $19 million was due to reorganization costs. Also, current and former executives Scott Henry, Glen Tomaszewski, and Michele Cloutier each received $50,000 in bonuses. Monthly Report Borders also responded to 99 objections from creditors in a separate filing on Wednesday, calling those objections “irrelevant” since they don’t intend to carry on contracts with business partners and landlords […]
AAP May eBook Sales Nudge Up As Print Sales Take Another Hit
eBook sales reported by 15 companies to the AAP comprised $73.4 million for May, and accounted for 18.5 percent of all net trade sales for the month, consistent with the prior two months. eBooks were the second-largest trade format again, behind trade paperbacks. Between the rise of ebooks and the decline of Borders, overall trade sales suffered their biggest monthly drop so far this year, though, with the steepest falls in adult hardcover and adult mass markets. Down $52.9 million even with the gain in ebooks, overall trade sales of $398.3 declined almost 12 percent in the month. Here are […]