HarperCollins UK CEO Victoria Barnsley has warned the industry is not likely to return to pre-recession glory after figures released by Nielsen BookScan for the first 24 weeks of the year, revealed a fall in the total value of book sales of 5.7% and eight of the top 10 publishers saw a drop in sales in 2010: “Our business needs to change, regardless of whether there is a recession or not. The economic situation has merely hurried the process along . . . To be honest, I don’t anticipate the market ever returning to pre-recession levels in its current form.” […]
Bookstores
Lively Testimony at BN Trial
Coverage of the first day of testimony in Ron Burkle’s lawsuit against Barnes & Noble in Delaware makes for fascinating, if not crystal clear, reading. Burkle indicated that he considered–but then rejected–a buyout bid for BN last year at $25 a share. (The stock now trades for under $13, its lowest point in years.) He accumulated stock last fall because he thought the company was historically cheap–“This was one of those things you would look back on and say ‘this could never happen again'”–but on that point he’s already been proven wrong by the market. Burkle is considering nominating his […]
Borders Shareholders “Asked” to Give LeBow Control Over Management
As expected, Borders announced a September 29 shareholders meeting to rubber-stamp the company’s deal with Bennet LeBow. He will either be granted a whopping stock warrant for 35.1 million shares exercisable at $2.25 or he will get “stock appreciation rights” that pay him anyway if the stock moves above that price. The surprise is the second motion on the agenda, which gives LeBow’s company control over the hiring and firing of the ceo, cfo, and any other executive officer. That should clear things up for anyone who still had doubts about whether LeBow bought complete control of the company.Release
eNews: Borders Opens eStore; Amazon Has Apparently Patented Nook-Like Technology; Samsung Retreats from US Market
Borders officially launched “their” ebookstore, which puts a Borders veneer on a Kobo-powered store, and innocently announces that their “goal is to secure a 17 percent share of the eBook market by July 2011.” (The company still estimates that they have about 15 percent of the overall US book market, even as their sales have declined. With US sales for the most recent fiscal year of $2.65 billion, if you figure that roughly 70 percent of their sales are books–or $1.85 billion–their market share estimate is based on a book market of only $12 billion, as opposed to the more […]
Barnes & Noble Has July 8 Court Date with Burkle
Barnes & Noble reveals in their annual report with the SEC that investor Ron Burkle’s lawsuit against the company filed in Delaware Chancery Court in early May is scheduled to go to trial July 8. Burkle’s Yucaipa American Alliance is seeking to overturn the poison poll BN adopted to keep him from acquiring more than 20 percent of the bookseller’s shares. Burkle has even more reason to be agitated now than when he filed the suit, with Barnes & Noble shares down over 30 percent from two months ago. In the standard risk factors enumerated in the bookseller’s SEC filing, […]
Occasions: Westhampton Store Opens, Bertelsmann’s Anniversary
Books and Books Westhamtpon Beach has their official opening today, on schedule.Site Today is the 175th anniversary of the founding of C. Bertelsmann Verlag in Guttersloh, Germany.Billboard