A federal court in Chicago dismissed a lawsuit filed against Barnes & Noble in October 2012 over the skimming of customer PIN codes from credit-card readers at stores in New York, California and seven other states, Bloomberg reports. The original suit, filed by Chicago customer Elizabeth Nowak and later consolidated with three other complaints for class-action seeking status, alleged that BN, by failing to disclose the PIN pad scam to customers for six weeks, was in “breach of an implied contract to protect that information and violation of Illinois consumer fraud laws” and that the company’s “security failures enabled the […]
Finance
Briefs: Bloomsbury Buys Legal Publisher; Consumer Settlement Payout Rises
Bloomsbury has acquired Oxford-based legal publisher Hart Publishing for £6.5 million in cash. The company says the unit is expected to “be immediately earnings enhancing.” The purchase is the latest step in their standing promise to boost academic and professional revenues to 50 percent of company sales within 5 years. It also nearly exhausts their cash resources for acquisitions. As of June 30, the company reported cash reserves of £8.5 million. The estimated per-book payouts to ebook consumers as a result of the legal settlements has been increased. Amazon has received attention for an informational post on their forums and email […]
Sourcebooks Makes Their Biggest Acquistion Yet
Earlier this summer Sourcebooks acquired Simple Truths, a nearly $10 million publisher you’ve probably never heard of — and until recently, Sourcebooks founder and ceo Dominique Raccah had not heard of them either, even though Simple Truths is based a few blocks away from Sourcebooks in Naperville, IL. (They were brought together by a local magazine.) One reason Simple Truths is little-known inside trade publishing, and a big reason Sourcebook was interested in the company, is that nearly all of their book sales are made directly, online through their own site and through corporate sales. Simple Truths publishes motivational and […]
People, Etc.
Having overseen McGraw-Hill Education during its spinoff from McGraw-Hill to its standalone status as a private company owned by Apollo Global Management, ceo Lloyd G. “Buzz” Waterhouse, 61, will retire by the end of the year. He’s been in the post only since June 2012. Spokesman Daniel Sieger told the WSJ Waterhouse is stepping down for “a combination of personal and professional reasons,” but will remain on the board. A search is underway for a replacement. On Monday Crown “inadvertently” fed out catalog data indicating a May 6, 2014 pub date for former Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner‘s memoir and a working title […]
BN’s Klipper Sells Shares
Barnes & Noble retail group ceo Mitchell Klipper sold about two-thirds of his personal shares in the retailer over the past week, taking in roughly $5.6 million for about 400,000 shares. According to the SEC filing, Klipper still controls about 200,000 shares, and has additional interests in the company through his 401(k). A BN spokesperson told the WSJ that a prohibition on stock sales for senior management was removed on August 20 after the company said it was no longer looking at “strategic alternatives” for rearranging their assets, including a possible split of Nook Media and the rest of the […]
Bowker Sells Research, Stats and eCommerce Lines to Nielsen
Bowker has reached an agreement to sell their business intelligence and commerce solutions product to Nielsen, with a closing expected in four to eight weeks. After the sale, Bowker will focus on their core identifier services and library services. Nielsen is acquiring the consumer research lines, which have operated in both the US and UK (comprising the former Book Marketing Limited, which Bowker acquired in 2012), the PubTrack Digital line, and the ecommerce tools. As Nielsen Books president Jonathan Nowell tells us, the companies have “always been two great complementary businesses” that are now coming together. “We’re looking forward to being able […]