Following an extended delay awaiting government review, CAA has completed their acquisition of ICM, first announced in September 2021. The deal is reported as valuing ICM at $750 million. (When ICM sold a minority one-third share in the agency to Crestview Partners in 2019, the price was reportedly approximately $150 million.) In the original announcement, CAA had emphasized the strength of ICM’s books department: “ICM’s industry-leading books division superbly complements CAA’s content-driven motion pictures, television, and podcasting businesses, in addition to its speakers arm, and other divisions.” Today’s announcement adds, “ICM brings to CAA a leading literary agency in the […]
Barnes & Noble Education Splits Top Job In Two, Renews Standstill with Investor
Ahead of reporting their fiscal fourth quarter later this week, Barnes & Noble Education announced that it has separated the roles of board chair and ceo, effective immediately. Lead independent director Vice Admiral John R. Ryan now serves as board chair, with Mike Huseby remaining as ceo. Additionally, Outerbridge Capital Investment’s chief investment officer Rory Wallace has been nominated to join the board at the next annual meeting in September and the investment firm renewed its standstill “cooperation agreement” first struck two years ago, when BNED explored and then abandoned a sale of the company. (Outerbridge currently holds 2 of […]
Booktopia’s Value Has Plunged
It took Australia’s leading online bookseller Booktopia years to pull off a public offering of shares in late 2020 — and in retrospect, it probably never should have done so. Shares have been sinking since last summer, accelerated by their surprise warning of low profits expected for the current year in early May. Since late August 2021, the company’s market cap has evaporated, going from $411 million (AU) down to about $26 million now. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a long “investigation.” While they note that, “In recent weeks, Booktopia has been laying off staff through redundancy rounds” — and […]
Five Authors Leave Fayard Following CEO Changes
Last week France’s Fayard announced the promotion of literary editor Isabelle Saporta to ceo of the house — part of Hachette Livre — following the surprise departure in March of highly-regarded longtime ceo Sophie de Closets. In response to Saporta’s promotion, and as part of the continuing reaction to the de Closets’ departure and the pending completion of Vivendi’s acquisition of as much of Lagardere as the European Commission will allow, five well-known Fayard authors announced they will no longer publish with the house. The most successful is novelist Virginie Grimaldi, who announced online, “My values and my beliefs are […]
ABA Membership Counts Grow Again: “The rise in BIPOC stores is a big change for us”
The ABA releases their latest membership through the AP, per tradition. (The data is usually announced at the organization’s annual meeting — which was postponed this year from May to mid-July.) CEO Allison Hill said the organization has 2,010 members now, operating 2,524 locations, well up from last year’s counts of 1,700 members and 2,100 locations. Hill “attributes some of the rise to owners who delayed renewing their memberships early in 2021, reflecting uncertainty about the pandemic’s impact.” They also tallied “well over 100” new stores that opened within the last year, “dozens of them owned by people from a wider […]
James Patterson Posts Brief Apology for Racism Remark
Following his widely criticized interview in The Times, James Patterson posted an apology. He wrote on social media: “I apologize for saying white male writers having trouble finding work is a form of racism. I absolutely do not believe that racism is practiced against white writers. Please know that I strongly support a diversity of voices being heard—in literature, in Hollywood, everywhere.”