PRH US employees will work at home until “sometime next year,” according to an August 3 letter to staff from ceo Madeline McIntosh. Rather than provide a specific timeline, McIntosh said, “We will return when it’s safe and when it’s practical, and not before.” (Previously, in a letter in late May, the plan had been “to work in our remote status at least until after Labor Day.”) She acknowledged in the letter, “I know this news will settle in complicated ways. Even though you’re probably not surprised by the decision, it still may carry an emotional punch. We’ve all been […]
Hudson Permanently Lays Off 40 Percent of Staff with Bleak Outlook for Travel
The travel retailer and bookseller Hudson reported earnings for the second quarter ending June 30, 2020, with sales of just $62 million, an 88 percent decline from $510 million a year ago on worldwide airport store closures due to the pandemic. Like-for-like sales were $53 million, a decline of 82 percent. Sales of literature and publications fared even worse, declining 93 percent to $2.6 million, down from $39.9 million last year’s second quarter. In a new “reduction in workforce,” the company has permanently laid off nearly 40 percent of its team, both corporate and field staff, effective July 31. An […]
Corporate: LSC’s Book Printing Sales Decline 32 Percent, HBG Celebrates Meyer Pre-Orders, Bloomsbury to Issue Dividend Shares
LSC Communications, operating under bankruptcy protection and set to auction its assets next month, reported second quarter results for the period ending July 31 on Thursday. Book printing sales comprised $198 million, a decline of $91 million from $289 million a year ago, down almost 32 percent, “primarily due to lower volume which was partially caused by the impact of COVID-19 and a $25 million decrease in pass-through paper sales.” The company said the decrease in book printing sales was mainly from lower “educational book volumes due to the uncertainty around school openings. Demand for trade books remained strong, but […]
Lagardere Publishing Down 12% In Second Quarter, with Rebound in June
Lagardere reported second quarter and half-year 2020 results on Thursday afternoon. Second quarter publishing sales were €514 million, down €70 million from a year ago (a 12 percent decline), with trends pointing up sharply in June. Month by month, the company said sales fell 39 percent in April (at €109 million); were 22 percent lower in May (€162 million); and then gained 21 percent in June (€243 million), “lifted by a large number of best-sellers in France and abroad.” For the first half of the year, that put Lagardere Publishing at €971 million, down €73 million, or 7 percent, from […]
Internet Archive Demands A Jury Trial
The Internet Archive, sued by four AAP member publishers for “willful mass copyright infringement” after creating an open-access “National Emergency Library” of its 1.3 million self-scanned ebooks, has answered the complaint with a request for a jury trial. (In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that there is a Seventh Amendment right to a trial by jury in copyright infringement suits seeking statutory damages.) Update: We overlooked that the plaintiff publishers had also asked for a jury trial in their original complaint. The answer, filed July 28 in the Southern District of New York, puts forth a number of affirmative defenses […]
Pearson Records Significant Operating Loss
Pearson released results for the six-months ending June 30 on Friday morning, with COVID-related impact weighing heavily on their sales. The company reported sales of £1.49 billion, down from £1.83 billion last year, a decline of 19 percent largely due to test center and school closures affecting its global assessment and international segments. North American courseware, including US higher ed, declined 14 percent, though they attributed it to the longer-term collapse in sales and conversion to lower-priced digital products (“due to the continuation of trends seen in 2019”), citing only “a modest impact from the closure of campus-based bookstores.” Adjusted […]