Barnes & Noble filed a second amended version of the prospectus for the spinoff of BN Education with the SEC yesterday. (Some reports notwithstanding, there is little indication that this is much different from the original prospectus that we first reported on in February.) The company did confirm the dissolution of the Nook Media, LLC holding partnership as of May 1, with parent company Barnes & Noble once again owning the Nook digital business in its entirety. They do note that the new, freestanding BN Education stock shares will trade under the ticker symbol BNED, and the filing package adds […]
Finance
Books-A-Million Starts the Fiscal Year on a Downward Note; HMH Completes Scholastic Edtech Acquisition
Sales dropped $2 million (or 1.9 percent) at Books-A-Million in their fiscal first quarter, ending May 2, reaching $101.8 million for the period. Same-store sales also declined 0.9 percent down 2.5 percent, and the net loss of $5.3 million was marginally improved over the $5.6 million net loss for the same time period last year. Even ceo Terrance Finley couldn’t quite issue an upbeat statement, commenting: “Our comparable store sales decline versus last year was largely due to a strong prior year title lineup in our teen category. This decline was moderated by improvements in our fiction and kids categories […]
Briefs: HarperCollins Adds Titles to Shazam; Sierra Club Closes Book Imprints; and More
HarperCollins will be the exclusive global book partner for the launch of music recognition app Shazam‘s new visual recognition functionality. (Other newspaper and magazine partners include Condé Nast, Esquire, Time and the Wall Street Journal.) Starting immediately whenever Shazam users wave their mobile phone over any HarperCollins book or promotional content with the Shazam camera logo on it, they will instantly get taken to custom mobile experiences from HarperCollins, including exclusive content, author interviews, special offers, videos, playlists and more. Available and forthcoming titles in the program include Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman; Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph […]
Corporate: Bertelsmann Sets Up Penguin Verlag in Germany; Frankfurt Book Fair Takes Minority Stake in IPR License
Germany’s Verlagsgruppe Random House will launch a new imprint, Penguin Verlag, sometime in 2016, the Bookseller reports. The imprint, to be run by Random House Germany publisher and managing director Thomas Rathnow, will publish both fiction and non-fiction, original trade and mass-market paperback editions as well as paperback reprints of books that have previously been published in hardback by various German Random House imprints (including Jonas Jonasson’s bestseller The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden.) The idea is that Penguin Verlag will “publish brands” and that Penguin, according to Rathnow, represents “the convergence of high quality and popular commercial […]
Corporate: Pearson Sells Family Education Network Sites, Harlequin Launches Audio
Pearson has sold their Family Education Network — the group of websites for kids that includes Poptropica and Funbrain — to UK-based private equity company Sandbox Partners for undisclosed terms. Founded last year, Sandbox is run by former president of Pearson English Bhav Singh. Pearson spokesperson Brendan O’Grady said the sale is part of a “shift to focus on the Pearson products and services with the biggest potential impact on learning outcomes.” But he noted Pearson will still use Poptropica characters in a number of their English-language learning products. Author Jeff Kinney, who co-founded Poptropica while working at FEN and continues as Poptropica’s creative […]
Paulson Will Pull More Money Out of HMH with Secondary Offering and Share Buyback
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s largest shareholder John Paulson and his associated investment funds will be cashing out another couple of pieces of his investment. The recently announced $300 million in stock repurchases announced by the board apparently includes a deal to buy $150 million of stock directly from Paulson’s companies. The price per share for that side agreement is pegged to a secondary offering to the public of additional shares controlled by Paulson. That prospectus, just filed with the SEC, proposes selling up to roughly 12.16 million shares — or about 8.5 percent of shares outstanding. As with the first public offering of […]