Scholastic announced it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Educational Technology and Services business to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company for $575 million in cash. Scholastic expects to have net proceeds of $360 million to $370 million after taxes, fees and expenses. The business unit they are selling had sales of $249 million, with $40 million in operating income, for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2014 — with sales of $175 million and operating income of $17 million for the first nine months of the current fiscal year. The deal is expected to close in the current calendar quarter. Scholastic says it will “focus on […]
Finance
HarperCollins Reaches New Multi-Year Agreement With Amazon
As we intimated in our story last week on HarperCollins’ return to full agency pricing, the company has in fact reached a multi-year agreement with Amazon covering print and digital titles. They said in a statement Monday evening: “HarperCollins has reached an agreement with Amazon and our books will continue to be available on the Amazon print and digital platforms.” Amazon declined to comment. Harper told other retailers last week that the return to agency pricing would go into effect at midnight Pacific time on Monday evening (or, for those keeping track while in London for the Book Fair, 8 AM GMT.) […]
German Giant Media-Saturn Looks to Build On Bankrupt Txtr
Some publishers were recently informed via email that Germany’s txtr, which filed for bankruptcy in late January, will be adopted as the ebook platform for the big consumer electronics retailing group Media-Saturn-Holding as of the beginning of April. (Described as the Best Buy of Germany and/or Europe, the group’s Media Markt, Saturn and Redcoon stores have annual sales of over 20 billion euros.) It’s a logical marriage of convenience, in that txtr was already working with MSH on their ebook plans. MSH is currently working to turn JUKE! — an established streaming music subscription service — into a much broader digital […]
European Commission Approves Macmillan Science/Springer Merger
The European Commission has approved the cashless merger between Holtzbrinck’s Macmillan Science and Education and Springer Science+Business Media, which was first announced back in January. After reviewing the joint venture proposal, the EC found that the two companies “overlap mainly in the market for the provision of academic publishing and, marginally, in the markets for scientific online databases and workflow tools, marketing and communication as well as publishing related services.” The Commission “concluded that the proposed acquisition would not raise competition concerns given the parties’ moderate combined market positions resulting from the proposed transaction and the presence of a number of strong players […]
No Joke — An Apparent Amazon Source Uses Business Insider to Pressure Harper Negotiations
Many online stories today need to be taken with a grain of a salt, but the Business Insider story about Amazon and HarperCollins posted Tuesday is apparently meant seriously. An unidentified source whose perspective makes them connected to Amazon tells BI (in which Jeff Bezos is an investor), “The contract between ‘Big Five’ book publisher HarperCollins and Amazon is about to expire, and HarperCollins is refusing to sign an agreement with the new terms that Amazon is asking.” The source also threatens on the bookseller’s behalf: “If HarperCollins and Amazon don’t come to an agreement, no print or digital HarperCollins […]
Scholastic Acquires Minority Stake in UK Publisher Make Believe Ideas
Scholastic announced Monday that it acquired a minority equity interest in UK-based education learning company Make Believe Ideas. The first co-branded books for children aged 0-5 will be unveiled at the Bologna Book Fair next week, with worldwide release scheduled for fall 2015. Financial terms were not disclosed. “Make Believe Ideas’ focus on early learning and creativity and its engaging product line extends our publishing program and fits seamlessly into our distribution channels at Scholastic,” said evp & president, trade publishing Ellie Berger in the announcement. “With a renewed focus on the importance of reading with babies beginning at birth, […]