Michael Cader

Lagardere Gets Hodder Lagardere has indeed made the winning bid for Hodder Headline, paying $406.4 million (which includes the assumption of about $24 million in debt). The unit is Britain’s fourth largest trade publisher, and its second-largest educational publisher. With 2003 sales of $263 million, the multiple is about 1.5 times sales. Over half of the sale proceeds will be added to parent company WH Smith’s undercapitalized pension fund. Bloomberg story Also in the UK Profile Books celebrated a banner year, driven by EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES, in which sales more than doubled to over $9 million. And Curtis Brown […]

Please Note Tomorrow is the gala visiting day at my son’s camp, so I’ll be forsaking publishing news for displays of athletic skill and a seven-year-old rendition of a 70s-style performance of “Love Train.” Lunch will resume Monday. Quarto Buys Again, Adding Aurum The Quarto Group announced their second acquisition of the month, purchasing the Aurum Press. Managing director Bill McCreadie and editorial director Piers Burnett will stay on with the unit and both retain minority stakes in the company. Jacqui Small Editions will remain as a 50-50 joint venture between Aurum and Jacqui Small, with Aurum handling UK sales. […]

Yes, Virginia, Norton Will Make Money on the Book The success of Norton’s authorized edition of the 9/11 Commission Report continues to cause befuddlement far and wide. At least today’s NY Times article clears up the notion that the — given their reported sales figures — publisher was going to lose money on the project. Company president Drake McFeely admits that now it’s only a question of whether it, “Will pay something like normal profits or above-average profits.” (Of course Slate’s Explainer still maintains, “There’s no guarantee that Norton will ever make a dime off this particular deal.” Does anyone […]

Norton Reports Big Sales for Report; Orders Second Printing Norton announced a 200,000-copy second printing for the 9/11 Commission Report yesterday. The publisher now estimates that they sold 350,000 copies through Sunday. (The company previously reported opening day sales that started at a low of 75,000 copies and crept up to 150,000 copies.) BN’s Bob Wietrak says the book, “Is flying out of our stores.” Both he and Borders’ Jenie Dahlmann, “Expect sales will slow, but they say the report could remain a best seller given interest in the election and in whether the commission’s recommendations are followed,” USA Today […]

Penguin Strong In US, As Currency and Warehouse Problems Weigh Down Overall Results US sales and profits for the Penguin Group were “up significantly” for the first half of 2004, while worldwide sales for Penguin fell compared to last year and profits dropped. Sales of $627 million for the group were down 7 percent, though the company says results were even on an “underlying” basis. Operating profits fell by 52 percent to $18.4 million (termed a 15 percent “underlying” drop). The company says that, “The weakness of the dollar is the principal reason for the decline in reported profits,” along […]

All Kinds of Jobs Just as busy as our deals page is our terrifically efficient Job Board. With 22 listings in the last 7 days and over 70 in all, we’ve got great openings in all departments and from all over the country. For employers, we provide by far the single-largest audience of book publishing people available online (well over 27,000 a day to be precise) — and we do it at what is by far the lowest price. If you haven’t tried our Job Board since we relocated it to PublishersMarketplace earlier in the year, you’ll be surprised at […]