CJK Group continues to build their content services business with the acquisition of Baltimore-based Kaufman Wills Fusting & Company, which will be integrated into their KnowledgeWorks Global division. Through the Sheridan group, CJK has built one of the country’s largest book printers. KWF Consulting and KWF Editorial together employ 99 people, providing editorial services and management consulting to the scholarly publishing community, including “professional staffing solutions for journal editorial office management, peer review services, and editor support.” CEO of CJK Group Chris Kurtzman said in the announcement, “With this acquisition, CJK Group continues to build a successful global operation serving every […]
Chatham Offers Higher Bid to Acquire RR Donnelly
Chatham Asset Management, which kicked off the bidding to take RR Donnelly private and already owns just under 15 percent of Donnelly’s stock, offered a fully-financed bid to acquire the printing company for $9.10 per share in cash. They say their bid is worth approximately $48 million more than the deal from Atlas Holdings (which bought LSC Communications in bankruptcy). Chatham also filed suit in a Delaware Chancery Court, asking for the termination fee due Atlas if they do not prevail and certain other provisions to be declared unenforceable. Chatham indicated that they will pay $9.34 a share if the termination fee […]
Newspaper Hates Portland, Loves Powell’s: Irreconciliable Differences?
In the great tradition of NYT stories asking if a given place can possibly be saved, the business section offers a bizarre piece about the Fox News hellscape that is Portland, OR — where smoke from forest fires “pervad[ed] a near-biblical sense of doom.” With efforts to recover at Powell’s Books the vague focus, the story suggests that they are talking broadly about life and bookstores in America: “How will brick-and-mortar stores fare in a time of continued fear over a deadly, airborne plague? What happens to city life when sidewalks are strewn with the rain-soaked belongings of people who […]
Alternate Realities: When Penguin Bought Random House, and Big Authors Got Royalties
It could be a while before we know the outcome of the DOJ’s lawsuit to block Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster, but the action is already resulting in a bull market for clueless reporting and commentary. From Bloomberg, we get an “analysis” from someone so well versed in publishing they think Penguin acquired Random House (I guess because their name is first?): “Admittedly, it doesn’t look like Penguin’s previous acquisition of Random House harmed the market at all.” The author also fails to understand that Simon & Schuster UK is a relatively small operation and was never […]
Commemorating Now, Celebrating Later: A PM Generation
This endless Covid year has taken away or suppressed all kinds of things, large and small. Along the way we ourselves passed a couple of occasions of note: First was the 20th anniversary of the start of Publishers Lunch, right after the lockdown began, in April 2020. And now we have arrived at the 20th anniversary of PublishersMarketplace.com. We’re not ready to party together yet — we’ll hope for that by next year, when we reach drinking age — but we didn’t want to let another milestone slip by without a short acknowledgment. It was, of course, simply unimaginable when […]
August AAP Stats Remained Strong
The AAP is catching up on their monthly StatShot reports, releasing statistics for August just a week after their July report. As in July, trade sales remained quite strong in August, once again with trade paperbacks leading the way. With retailers loading up early for the holidays, August sales were even stronger: Trade sales of $758 million were $112 million higher than a year ago, up 17.3 percent (and August 2020 was $46 million than August 2019). Adult sales of $521 million were up $69 million from 2020; children’s sales of $237 million were up $43 million. Adult trade paperbacks […]