Quarto has reshuffled its board of directors just two months after Laurence Orbach was reinstalled himself as executive chairman. Orbach will now step down from that position to become a non-executive director, while Andy Cumming, who joined Quarto’s board in March after 17 years at Lloyds, is promoted to chairman and senior independent non-executive director….
Finance
Penguin Random House Buys Hind Pocket Books in India
Penguin Random House India has acquired Hind Pocket Books, founded in 1958 and “widely considered as pioneer in publishing Hindi and Urdu paperbacks in India,” as the Times of India puts it. PRH India says the acquisition “will build further on [their] presence in local language publishing, to which it has been committed for over…
PRH Sells Smashing Ideas
Penguin Random House has sold the Seattle-based company Smashing Ideas, which they bought seven years ago (the first acquisition under Markus Dohle, prior to the merger with Penguin). The unit, which provides “consults across the product design and development lifecycle,” was sold to IT service provider Luxoft, for undisclosed terms. PRH US president, director of strategic…
Accountant Charged With Embezzling $3.4 Million From Donadio & Olson
A recently unsealed federal criminal complaint revealed that longtime Donadio & Olson accountant Darin Webb was charged earlier this month with embezzling $3.4 million from the literary agency between January 2011 and March 2018. According to the 5-page complaint, Webb, who was employed by Donadio & Olson as their bookkeeper since 2001, “used his position…
Corporate Briefs: Lagardere Leaker, Quarto Qualms
Last week French newspaper Liberation covered an anonymous email sent to “a good part of the French establishment” titled “The Unbearable Impunity of Lagardere,” a six-page PDF criticizing Arnaud Lagardere and his leadership of the company that bears his family’s name. The point of the document is to assert that Lagardere has failed in managing…
People, Etc.
At Harper Collins, Jennifer Civiletto is moving to the Harper Group as senior publishing manager, reporting to Amy Baker. She was publishing manager, working with former president and publisher Michael Morrison. Following the elimination of Ben Ball’s job at Penguin Random House Australia, senior editor in the same Literary division Meredith Rose resigned “as a consequence” of…