After a lengthy investigation that started last December following “a number of unsolicited inquiries,” the Barnes & Noble Education board has once again found that it is doing a terrific job and has formally ended any consideration of a sale. “An exhaustive strategic review was undertaken and completed,” the release says. Fortunately, “At the same time, the company also made significant progress towards implementing and executing its digital transformation strategy, which further enhanced the company’s importance and relevance to its customers, particularly given the post-COVID-19 shift to remote learning.” Independent director Vice Admiral John R. Ryan says in the announcement, […]
M&A
Dufry to Take Hudson Group Private Again; Arnault Approves Investment In Lagardere’s Holding Company
Travel retail and bookstore chain Hudson announced a definitive agreement on Wednesday morning with controlling shareholder Dufry to buy out public shareholders and take the company private again, just two years after its 2018 IPO. Dufry AG Group, which already owns 57.4 percent of the company, will buy the remaining equity for $7.70 a share. That’s a 50 percent premium to Hudson’s August 18 closing price — but less than half the 2018 IPO share price of $19 on 39.4 million shares, which raised $749 million in proceeds. The travel retail business has suffered considerably during the pandemic, and so […]
People, Etc.
Danya Kukafka will join Aevitas Creative Management as an agent, representing select projects alongside Michelle Brower. Previously, she was an assistant editor at Riverhead. Loan Le has been promoted to editor at Atria, reporting to Lindsay Sagnette. Allison Lewis has joined Sourcebooks as marketing specialist. At Bonnier Books UK Helen Wicks has been promoted to executive director for children’s trade and Elise Burns to group sales, marketing and PR director. Historian and author Bernard Bailyn, 97, “whose award-winning books on early American history reshaped the study of the origins of the American Revolution,” died on Friday. Best known for The […]
People, Etc.
Pronoy Sarkar has been promoted to editor at St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Allison Sundstrom has been promoted to associate art director, children’s at Sourcebooks. Nicole Lyons has been promoted to manager of operations at Wayside Publishing. Events The ALA has announced that its 2021 Midwinter Meeting, scheduled for January 22-26 in Indianapolis, will take place virtually due to COVID-19. ALA president Julius C. Jefferson, Jr. said in the release, “In the last few months, we have successfully pivoted our delivery to present the Virtual Event in June and ALA’s Holding Space tour series this summer. Though we very much hoped […]
Kobo Brings Subscriptions to Canada, Launches New Device
Kobo has launched their subscription reading service Kobo Plus in Canada, three and a half years after starting with subscriptions in Holland and Belgium. The company notes, “Rakuten Kobo recognizes books as the next frontier for subscriptions in Canada. Further, Kobo has seen demand for this service in global markets.” It is priced at $9.99 a month (CA). They say that in Holland, the program brought new readers and customers to digital (or at least to their service): “60 per cent of the country’s Kobo Plus subscribers had never before purchased an a-la-carte eBook from Kobo.” They say it has […]
Briefs
Donald Trump remains remarkably effective at boosting the sales of books he tries to block. As of June 30 Simon & Schuster told the court they had printed and started shipping approximately 75,000 copies of Mary Trump‘s TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH — and yesterday in a new afffadavit the publisher said they have printed and shipped over 600,000 hardcovers. Bookselling During lockdown Barnes & Noble refreshed about 350 of its stores, but as the NYT reports, the adjustments were relatively minor, “using small teams to move furniture around, paint walls and bring in new books.” Ceo James Daunt reports […]