On Thursday, Amazon’s stock hit a new all-time high, closing above $800 a share for the first time. In the broader market sell-off early this year Amazon had traded as low as about $500 a share. For the year-to-date the stock is up about 19 percent, though the biggest movement was in 2015, when shares more than doubled as the fast-growing AWS cloud services division produced significant earnings. A number of analysts have upgraded Amazon’s stock again recently, expecting it to keep rising to between $950 and $1000 a share. With this year’s again, Amazon currently has the fourth-largest market capitalization […]
Archives for September 2016
Zecher Resigns As Houghton Mifflin Harcourt CEO
Five years after joining the company and leading it through its final restructuring and an IPO, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ceo Linda Zecher has resigned — apparently dismissed by a restless board. Current board member L. Gordon Crovitz will serve as interim ceo while a search is conducted for a new ceo. Board chair Lawrence K. Fish said in a statement, “The Board decided this was a good time to begin a search for the next CEO, who will be charged with combining strengths across the company to accelerate growth in the core business as well as in adjacent markets, while continuing […]
Potter Play Drives Scholastic Gain
Scholastic reported sales for their fiscal first quarter, ending August 31, with the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child driving sales up to $283 million, compared to $191 million a year ago. Their traditional seasonal loss (since school was not in session) only declined modestly on the big sales gain, however, at ($63.1 million), compared to ($79.5 million) a year ago. Trade publishing sales were $116.9 million — compared to $47.3 million a year ago without a new Harry Potter book. The Potter release in Canada also boosted Scholastic’s international division, where sales rose $16.6 million to $89.7 million […]
People
At Crown Children’s, Emily Easton has been promoted to vp, publisher. Marissa DeCuir has been promoted to president and partner at JKS Communications. Kurt Hettler has joined Ingram Academic Services as director of academic services. Previously he spent the past 25 years at Oxford University Press, most recently as director, publisher services. In addition, Peter Antone has joined Ingram as director of marketing, publisher services. Most recently he served as director of consumer marketing and sales at The Tennessean and Gannett-USA Today Network. Former Plume editorial director Rachel Bressler is now director of client relations for Ingram’s Perseus Distribution, reporting to […]
Donnelly to Split On October 1
RR Donnelley’s board formally approved the final conditions of their imminent split into three separately-traded public companies. On October 1, current Donnelley shareholders (as of the record date of September 23) will receive one share of the new LSC Communications and one share of the new Donnelley Financial for every eight shares of RR Donnelley common stock held. LSC is the company that people in the book publishing industry will continue to do business with, providing the traditional print, fulfillment and supply chain services for publishers, merchandisers and retailers, and legacy Donnelly will focus on multichannel marketing communication strategies. The units comprising […]
People, Etc.: O’Leary to Head BISG
Following the abrupt departure of Mark Kuyper after less than a year with the organization, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has hired longtime consultant Brian O’Leary to serve as executive director, beginning October 3. BISG Chair Tara Catogge says in the announcement, “Over nearly two decades as a consultant, he has worked with a wide range of book publishers and associations, using his insight and experience to shape their strategy and operations. Brian has also worked with BISG on several projects, including a critical study of metadata in the publishing supply chain. More recently he has served on our Board of Directors. […]