Joshua Kendall will join Little, Brown on May 29 as the new editorial director of their Mulholland Books suspense fiction imprint, reporting to Judy Clain. Previously Kendall was senior editor at Viking/Penguin, and fills the slot vacated by John Schoenfelder, who left to work for film producer Scott Rudin. At Open Road, Allison Underwood has been promoted to senior marketing manager and Lara Selavka moves up to associate interactive producer. In addition, Iris Blasi joins as marketing manager, reporting to Underwood. She was most recently digital media manager with Hilsinger-Mendelson East. Ingram has relaunched their online search and order platform […]
Bookstores
Significant BAMM Investor Gowda Says Buyout Undervalues Bookseller
Earlier this week when the Anderson family, which owns a majority stake in Books-A-Million, announced its intention to buy out all other shareholders and take the company private at $3.05 a share, the move was seen by analysts and investors as a lowball or “take-under” effort. At the time, minority investor Harsha Gowda of Blueshore Capital Management, with a 6.38 percent stake in BAMM, told us he would “have to postpone a discussion about this situation until after the proposed transaction occurs.” It seems he didn’t have to wait very long, based on a letter Gowda sent to Books-A-Million’s board […]
Jana Took Some Barnes & Noble Profit, But Remains Big Holder
Investors who hold more than 5 percent of a company’s stock traditionally need to declare any sales to the SEC within 48 hours, so today should be when we learn whom among the small set of concentrated Barnes & Noble investors took the money on Monday after the announcement of the Microsoft deal. So far only Jana Partners has filed, indicating that the firm sold a million of their shares near the top, at $24.42 a share. But they are still holding almost 10 percent, or approximately 5.96 million shares. Given the unprecedented trading volume on Monday of nearly 30 million […]
Is the Barnes & Noble Spinoff Really A Leave Behind?
With yesterday’s headlines about Microsoft’s investment in a newly-created subsidiary of Barnes & Noble absorbed, there are a lot of details–and implications–to dive into. While we underscored in yesterday’s account that Microsoft was both paying out revenue share advances of $60 million a year and contributing $25 million a year towards acquiring content around the world in addition to their $300 million equity investment, we didn’t total it up for you: the revenue share payments are promised for three years, and the content payments are pledged for five years, totaling $305 million in committments. (At the same time, it appears […]
People, Etc.
Chantal Restivo- Alessi has joined HarperCollins as chief digital officer, reporting to Brian Murray, and filling the position vacated by Charlie Redmayne when he joined Pottermore. She will also sit on the company’s executive committee. In her new role, Restivo-Alessi, most recently head of media corporate finance at ING Bank in London, will be responsible for leading the overall global digital strategy for the company, manage the commercial relationships with existing and new digital partners, and grow the digital revenues worldwide, working closely with all the divisions of the company worldwide. Leslie Hulse, svp digital business development, will report to […]
Anderson Family Offers to Buy Out Books-a-Million Shares and Go Private
With Barnes & Noble all but private, the nation’s second largest bookselling chain Books-A-Million may go completely private, as the controlling stakeholders at the Anderson family have offered to acquire all outstanding shares. It is a modest offer–at $3.05 per share in cash, it values the entire company at $48.8 million, and is a 20 percent premium over the closing price last Friday. But shares traded as high as 3.50 a share in early April, and within the past year have been as high as about $4.75 a share, which led ZPR Investment Management president Mark Zavanelli to tell the WSJ […]