Vox Media acquired the online magazine about “drinks and drinking culture” Punch from Penguin Random House, to pair with their Eater franchise. Co-founder Talia Baiocchi remains with Punch as editor-in-chief. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt sold CliffsNotes to online learning platform Course Hero. HMH had acquired the line from Wiley in 2012 — which acquired it as part of their Hungry Minds/IDG Books purchase in 2001 (following IDG’s acquisition from founder Cliff Hillegass in 1998 for $14.2 million).
Acquisitions: Saga Egmont Adds German Publisher
Digital publisher Saga Egmont has acquired German audiobook publisher Audiobuch Verlag, making them the largest audiobook publisher in Germany.
Follett Said to Seek Sale
The NY Post has an interesting though mangled and incorrect story about college bookstores — so much so that one must read the whole thing with a bit of skepticism. For starters, they bury the lede: Privately-held Follett Corp. retained Morgan Stanley earlier this year and has been looking for a buyer, “according to a source with knowledge of the situation.” The company is likely to have suffered during the pandemic. Competitor Barnes & Noble Education saw college bookstore sales decline 22 percent in the past year. Follett also competes with Scholastic in school book fairs, with the latter reporting […]
Amazon to Try Larger Physical Stores
After relatively unremarkable experiments with small bookstores and shops selling miscellaneous well-rated goods (not to mention abandoned efforts at campus pick-up venues and mall pop-ups), next Amazon “plans to open several large physical retail locations…that will operate akin to department stores,” the WSJ reported. Early Amazon department stores are expected in Ohio and California, according to their sources, running around 30,000 square feet (or about the average size of book superstores in their heyday). The initiative has been in the works for some time: “Amazon approached some U.S. apparel brands roughly two years ago with the idea of opening large-scale […]
Obituary: Jack Covert Dies
Jack Covert, 77, founder of Porchlight Book Company (previously known as 800-CEO-READ), died on Friday, August 13. He started the business inside Milwaukee’s Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, and retired from the company in 2014. The company writes: “We believe in books, but our business is centered around the services we provide to customers—because that is how Jack oriented the company. It was an ethos he extended to the employees of the company, as well. He told us when he retired that the thing he was most proud of was how the company he built provided a foundation for the lives […]
Finance: Quarto Owner Keeps Buying; Springer’s PE Co-Owner Solved Their Problem
In a series of purchases this month, Quarto’s controlling shareholder CK Lau and his company 1010 Printing Limited have increased their holdings in the publisher. 1010 Printing acquired another 125,000 shares — giving them just over 37 percent of shares outstanding — and Lau personally acquired another 60,000 shares, holding a little over 4 percent of the company. At the higher end of the financial landscape, repeated efforts by the Springer Nature joint venture to launch an IPO are off the table following a refinancing earlier this summer. Private equity firm BC Partners, which owned a 47 percent share (alongside […]