More than seven months after Mondadori first offered to buy RCS Media, the sale, for 127.5 million euros — less than Mondadori’s initial offer of 135 million euros– was approved by RCS’s board of directors over the weekend. The deal will still need approval from Italy’s antitrust body, which will take between 60 and 90 days. Should it go ahead the combined RCS Mondadori will account for roughly 35 percent of the Italian trade book publishing market. While Rizzoli, as well as the Bompiani, Marsilio, Fabbri, Bur, Sonzogno, ETAS imprints, will move to Mondadori ownership, as will the education unit, […]
Finance
Harper Buys Out Harlequin Mondadori Joint Venture (and News Corp. Sells Amplify), As Big Italian Merger Discussion Continues
HarperCollins announced on Wednesday the creation of its latest international branch based on top of Harlequin, HarperCollins Italia. The publisher bought out Mondadori’s 50 percent share in the 34-year-old Harlequin Mondadori joint venture. Mondadori said that Harper paid 6.7 million euros for the buyout, and each party took another 1.6 million euros in cash out of the business. The company is reported to have had sales of 9.1 million euros in 2014, with net income of 1 million euros. “The business will continue to publish romance under the iconic Harmony imprint, and expand its commercial trade publishing with titles from HarperCollins and Harlequin, as well as local authors,” the […]
Deadline Looms for Mondadori RCS Media Acquisition
Wednesday marks the day when the extension of the exclusive negotiation period runs out on Mondadori’s offer to buy the book publishing assets of RCS Media — a process that began back in February. The Italian press is treating it as a done deal, with both sides reportedly having been working hard on finalizing the details. One source says the deal will “close by the deadline barring unforeseen circumstances.” Some accounts expect the closing could slide by a few days, though one account reports that any extension would require specific board approval. Mondadori is thought to be eager to have […]
SEC Censures, Fines Glickstein For 2014 “Proposal” To Buy Out Barnes & Noble
Since 2011 the “private investment firm” G Asset Management — by all appearances a one-man shop operated by Michael Glickstein — garnered headlines by writing repeatedly to the Barnes & Noble board, proposing various splits of the company’s assets or theoretical offers to acquire control of parts or all the company itself, culminating in a press release claiming it had “made a proposal to acquire” controlling interest in the bookseller. Apparently Glickstein’s antics registered hard on the radar of the SEC, which announced Thursday afternoon sanctions against G Asset Management for issuing “a misleading news release…that claimed it had offered to purchase a majority interest in Barnes & […]
Oyster Shutting Down, In Google AcquiHire
Ebook subscription service Oyster announced late Monday afternoon in a blog post that the company would wind down operations “over the next several months.” Publishers told us to expect this development earlier in the day, as part of a sale of Oyster. The subscription company then confirmed to Re/code that “a portion” of staff are going to work for Google Play Books, and sources told the site that Oyster ceo Eric Stromberg, co-founders Andrew Brown and Willem Van Lancker are among those who will work for Google. Sources said Google is de facto the buyer, paying Oyster for the right to hire some of its […]
Pearson’s Fallon Will Wait on Selling Penguin Random House Stake
With Pearson able to ask Bertelsmann to buy out their minority 47 percent share of Penguin Random House as early as this October, the education company’s John Fallon told Bloomberg TV, “It’s most unlikely that we’ll exercise the option at this time.” He noted, “The business is doing well, and we are one year away from achieving peak synergies.” Perhaps more relevantly, Pearson has abundant cash coming in this year from the sale of the Financial Times and their half of the Economist, so it’s reasonable that the company would wait a bit to cash in their PRH holding. Without […]