The Authors Guild, the Open Markets Institute, and a number of writers associations have co-signed a letter urging the Department of Justice to reject the plan to merge Simon & Schuster into Penguin Random House. “The deal would bring well more than half of key U.S. book markets under the control of a single corporation, which poses a variety of potential threats to freedom of speech and democracy in the United States. The takeover falls clearly within the standard of illegality set by the Clayton Act and should be summarily rejected,” argues the letter, later offering “five arguments that easily […]
M&A
Vivendi Becomes Second Largest Shareholder in Amber-Backed Prisa
Vivendi has built a 9.9 percent stake in education and media publisher Grupo Prisa, which owns El Pais newspaper as well as Santillana, a major educational publisher, particularly in South America. Prisa sold the Santillana trade business to Penguin Random House in 2014 and though lightly reported, last October they agreed to sell Santillana’s K-12 business in Spain to Finland’s Sanoma, an enterprise value of 465 million euros. At the time, Prisa indicated the move would establish a framework to separate its media and education businesses down the road. Vivendi’s position in Prisa is another sign of their broad ambition […]
South Korea’s Naver to Acquire Wattpad for More Than $600 Million
Further to recent reports that storytelling website Wattpad had put itself up for sale, on Tuesday publicly-held Korean internet conglomerate Naver said it would acquire Wattpad for cash and stock valuing the company at over $600 million. (The mix of cash versus stock is not being disclosed at this time.) Korea’s largest search engine, Naver’s properties also include digital comics publisher Webtoon — said to have 72 million monthly active users — which it sees as pairing well with Wattpad’s community. The deal is expected to close some time in the second quarter. Naver has a market cap of roughly […]
eBook Player Glose Is Acquired by Medium
In its ever-ambitious search for a business model and clear expression of why it exists at all, website Medium has acquired Paris-based Glose — an ebook platform and store, perhaps best known in the trade as the ebook vendor HarperCollins switched to for selling their ebooks directly to customers, after BookShout went of out of business. Glose and their roughly 20 employees will remain based in Paris, their ceo Nicolas Princen becoming vice president of books at Medium. Glose claims 1 million readers worldwide, and their separate Glose Education “serves as the ebook provider of choice for over a dozen […]
People, Etc.
Kate Dresser has joined Putnam as senior editor. She was previously at Gallery Books. At Holt, James Melia has been promoted to executive editor; Ruby Rose Lee is associate editor; Catryn Silbersack moves up to publicist; Sarah Fitts is associate publicist; and Nicolette Seeback is now associate art director. Riva Hocherman becomes associate publisher of Metropolitan Books. Ashley Lau has joined the marketing department as senior designer. At Celadon Books, Rachel Chou has been promoted to senior vice president, associate publisher, marketing and publicity; Christine Mykityshyn to senior publicity director; Anna Belle Hindenlang to senior publicist; Jaime Noven to senior marketing […]
Wattpad Said to be Looking for A Big Sale
After receiving unsolicited interest from a US internet company last fall, Wattpad is reported to have invited bids for the company. The company is “now in active talks with multiple interested parties and could sign a deal as early as this month,” the Globe and Mail reports. By their account they are “in talks with multiple parties to potentially sell the enterprise for upward of $500 million.” The company told the paper, “We don’t have any news to share.” While the platform has lots of users — 90 million a month — after more than 14 years it still does […]