Books-A-Million noted in a filing with the SEC on Friday that it has agreed to buy back 655,596 of common stock held by investor Harsha Gowda at a price of $2.15 a share. The company is paying a 3 cent discount off of the trading price from Tuesday though shares opened today at below $2.00. The bookseller’s stock has been very lightly traded recently, with daily volume of under 10,000 shares trading hands. Gowda, who runs BlueShore Global Equity Fund out of Florida (and, originally, New Jersey), first bought a stake in BAMM in December 2011, when he acquired more than […]
Finance
Hachette Book Group Announces Layoffs
Approximately 28 employees were let go by Hachette Book Group on Thursday (which termed the cutbacks as about 3 percent of total staff, without indicating an exact number), according to people familiar with internal announcement. Reductions were made throughout the company, rather than focused on any particular department, and they included some well-known longtime employees and people at the vice president level, plus at least three well-known, longstanding editors. (Per our informal policy, we’re inclined to only list names if people want their departures known.) While the job cuts will be viewed in the context of the current standoff with Amazon — and are likely […]
Byliner Admits to Authors It’s Seeking A Sale
Further to our own report from last week that Byliner has been looking for a buyer (and has strongly suggested that it will not be able to continue business for long without a sale or new investment), the company sent an email to authors on Tuesday. “As for our own story, it’s undergoing some changes,” it says in a letter signed The Byliner Team. “We’ve struggled to reach the level of growth we’d been hoping for the business, and thus we’ve begun conversations with possible partners about the future of Byliner. We’re working to find a good home for our […]
Open Road Buys Another List, from Premier Digital
Shortly after acquiring the E-Reads ebook list of approximately 1,200 titles in April, Open Road is bulking up more with the acquisition of Premier Digital Publishing‘s list of over 300 ebooks. Open Road will take over publication of those titles, “a majority of which” are in the mystery, science fiction, and fantasy categories, in July. The acquisitions puts Open Road at over 6,000 titles in all. Premier Digital Publishing, founded in Los Angeles and now with offices in Toronto and New York, had attracted authors with a reported 80 percent royalty. A spokesperson for Open Road tells us that going forward […]
Judge Temporarily Blocks Hastings Merger, Schedules Hearing On Shareholder Suit
A Texas US District Court has granted a temporary restraining order “restricting” the proposed merger between retailer Hastings and companies controlled by National Entertainment Collectibles Association owner Joel Weinshanker. The court has scheduled a June 12 hearing on a shareholder lawsuit alleging that the purchase price is “insufficient consideration” and charged that the officers and directors of Hastings “breached their respective fiduciary duties in the course of negotiating and approving” the merger. The buyout offer is for $3 a share, but the plaintiffs indicated earlier they believe the company may be worth $5 a share or more. If the $21.4 million buyout is […]
Mediabistro Sold to Prometheus
Mediabistro will sell its editorial and e-commerce assets to a subsidiary of Prometheus Global Media, which also owns Adweek, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, for $8 million in cash. That’s significantly less than the $23 million Jupitermedia paid to acquire Mediabistro in 2007 — but the parent company’s stock total market is about $6.3 million, even after a 13 percent gain today. As Crain’s notes, the parent company reported a loss of $5.7 million in 2013, on sales of $12.5 million. Prometheus is acquiring Mediabistro’s editorial properties, job board and education business. CEO Alan Meckler will retain the trade show business and related […]