Bertelsmann has agreed to acquire North Carolina-based educational software firm Relias Learning, paying in the “mid-hundreds of millions” of dollars to buyout firm Vista Equity Partners. Two sources tell Reuters that translates into roughly $540 million. Relias produces employee training software that is used by over 4,000 organizations, primarily in health care and human services (but also including such sectors as law enforcement and correctional facilities). Bertelsmann ceo Thomas Rabe notes in a statement, “Relias is the leading e-learning provider in the healthcare and compliance sectors, and the company profits from the three global megatrends of education, health and digitization.” Reuters quotes Rabe […]
Archives for October 2014
Apple Celebrates Another Big Quarter
Apple reported fiscal fourth quarter results after the close of the market on Monday, with a strong launch of the new iPhones moving over 39 million units and taking company sales to $42 billion for the quarter, up 12 percent compared to a year ago. iPad sales declined 13 percent in units, at 12.3 million devices for the period, but ceo Tim Cook called that a “speed bump” in the investor conference call. Apple has now sold approximately 239 million iPads since their launch in 2010. In the category we keep a close eye on — what they call iTunes/Software/Services […]
People: Green to ICM, and More
Following the dissolution of Jeff Berg’s start-up agency Resolution, veteran agent Rich Green has joined the media rights department of ICM, based in Los Angeles. Green was at CAA for 9 years before joining Resolution, and worked at UTA prior to that. He has represented authors including Jonathan Franzen, Matthew Quick, Chuck Palahniuk, Neal Stephenson and Deborah Harkness in their film deals. In other agency news, further to the NY Post report a week ago, private equity firm TPG is now said to be spending about $225 million to increase their share in CAA from 35 percent to a controlling 53 percent. […]
Atavist Books to Close At the End of the Year
Atavist Books, the digital-first book publishing joint venture founded and funded by IAC and film producer Scott Rudin, will shut down operations on December 31 and no longer publish new works. The software and media enterprise The Atavist will continue, however, and will take over Atavist Books’ assets along with IAC — which has a minority stake in The Atavist. In fact, Atavist, Inc. just closed another $2 million debt/funding round in which IAC once again participated. Atavist Inc. ceo and founder Evan Ratliff told us, “While that partnership [with Atavist Books] won’t continue, Atavist itself is currently stronger than ever, and we’re […]
Simon & Schuster and Amazon Agree to Multi-Year Renewal, With Agency Restored
As the Hachette Book Group remains in a standoff over contract renewal terms with Amazon, Simon & Schuster has reached agreement on a multi-year deal for both ebooks and print books. The deal also covers S&S distribution clients. (Word of a renewal was first reported online briefly on Monday afternoon by the WSJ and Business Insider. We confirmed via our own source and posted thereafter; by the end of the day, S&S ceo Carolyn Reidy informed authors and agents through an emailed letter.) Most important within the trade is that Simon & Schuster looks to have become the first of the […]
Krugman Takes On Amazon
You probably don’t need us to tell you about Nobel Prize-winning economist and NYT op-ed columnist Paul Krugman’s latest piece: “Amazon.com, the giant online retailer, has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America.” Indirectly answering his NYT colleague Joe Nocera, who wrote, “Amazon plays rough, so what?” and noted “American antitrust law is simply not very concerned with the fate of competitors,” Krugman asserts that for now Amazon is monopsonist rather than a monopolist. “In economics jargon, Amazon is not, at least so far, acting like a monopolist, a dominant seller with the power to […]