As we have reported regularly, Quarto Group’s controlling owner CK Lau continues to steadily buy up more shares in the publishing company, with a steady stream of purchases throughout April. With the latest filing, Lau’s company 1010 Printing Limited now owns over 50 percent of publisher’s stock, with nearly 20.5 million shares. (Lau owns a small block of stock in his own name as well.) Lau started adding to his stake in earnest last August, after sales rebounded and the company reported a modest profit. As of his mid-August investment, 1010 Printing owned 37 percent of the publisher’s stock and […]
Bookselling: Another Longtime Barnes & Noble Store to Close, In New Jersey
This time it’s their store in Clark, NJ, a location that has been in business for 24 years. Like the big Boston store at the Prudential Center, this store will close on June 19, after the “landlord has opted not to renew our lease.” Another New Jersey BN store, in Springfield, is reportedly at the end of its lease after 30 years in that location is likely to be demolished later this year to make way for a newly-built Chick-fil-A.
Early 2022 Sales Led by BookTok Fiction and Southern Migration
This time of year, if you focus too much on weekly market sales reports without looking at the broader context – particularly the timing of Easter – you can get confused pretty easily. For the first quarter of 2022 (the 13 weeks ending April 2), print book sales as measured by NPD Bookscan registered 184 million units – 18 million units, or 9 percent, lower than the big first quarter in 2021. But three weeks later, following a good sales week leading in to Easter and natural falloff the following week, the true comparison was clearer – and better: Year-to-date […]
More Paper Problems: Big European Producer Looks to Sell Four Mills
Announced about a month ago (and flagged now by the Bookseller), Finland’s forestry and packaging giant Stora Enso announced plans for “a possible divestment” of four paper mills across Europe (in Finland, Sweden and Germany), retaining just one mill in Belgium that produces magazine paper as they focus on packaging and other products. The entire paper division had sales of 1.7 billion euros in 2021. The company said “paper is not a strategic growth area for the Group.” Despite strong demand and growing prices, Inderes analyst Antti Viljakainen told Reuters, “On the operating profit level, 2020 and 2021 have been […]
Yes, Maryland, Publishers Do Want A Permanent Injunction
After the state of Maryland’s law attempting to regulate the licensing of ebooks to libraries was quickly found unconstitutional by District Court Judge Deborah L. Boardman, the plaintiff AAP is asking the judge to ensure the endurance of her ruling with a permanent injunction. Earlier in the month Maryland’s state attorney general had requested that Judge Boardman issue declaratory judgment for the AAP without issuing a permanent injunction, looking to avoid “having to invoke the Court’s ongoing jurisdiction over the State’s compliance” (and, perhaps, trying to leave some wiggle room for future legislation). Maryland had argued that it did not […]
Big Boston Barnes & Noble Store to Close
Missing from the recent NYT version of Barnes & Noble’s trajectory was any mention of the large superstores that have been closing, sometimes swapped out for much smaller stores in the same area. Next on that list is the chain’s big 36,000-square-foot store in Boston’s Prudential Center, which will close June 19 after 20 years in that location. The store said it was unable to negotiate a lease renewal with the landlord, and the chain encourages area customers to drive outside of Boston to its locations in Hingham and Peabody. BN has been having particular trouble in the Boston area: […]