Judge Denise Cote formally set the damages trial against Apple in the ebook pricing case for May 2014. Also, the full transcript from the August 9 conference on the proposed injunction has been posted. “What I’m trying to do here is to fashion as narrow a remedy as possible to create, restore, promote, price competition in ebooks,” Judge Cote. “We do need an injunction here. There was blatant price fixing. There was structural collusion by the publisher defendants.” She acknowledges again that agency by itself is a legal selling arrangement — but she also clearly prefers a world in which […]
Finance
People, Etc.
Director of publicity for Bloomsbury Children’s and Walker Children’s Katy Hershberger is leaving. She will start next week as an associate director of publicity for Simon & Schuster Children’s, as well as the Atheneum, and Margaret McElderry Books imprint. Following the sale of AP Watt to United Agents late last year, Derek Johns will retire at the end of November. He has been at AP Watt since 1992. At Harlequin’s Mira, Tara Parsons has been promoted to editorial director. Casey Maloney joined Picador as senior publicist. She was most recently a publicist at Penguin, working on the Gotham, Avery, Viking […]
Houghton Files SEC Papers for $100 Million IPO
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt formally filed a preliminary prospectus with the SEC last Friday, preparing to offer shares to public worth up to $100 million. As reported earlier, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the lead underwriters, joined by Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Wells Fargo. None of the proceeds will go to the company however; this offering is all returning some cash to HMH’s backers, and giving them a liquid public market to trade (and value) their shares. Houghton will not formally release second quarter 2013 results until later this month, on August 15 — though they essentially disclosed those results […]
Dundurn Press Buys Thomas Allen Publishers
In Canada, Dundurn Press has acquired Thomas Allen Publishers, the publishing arm that Thomas Allen & Son started up in 2000, in a deal expected to close Thursday. The sale includes the publisher’s backlist of 126 titles, including Giller winners HALF BLOOD BLUES by Esi Edugyan and THE POLISHED HOE by Austin Clarke. Dundurn president Kirk Howard told the National Post the deal has been in the works since February, when Thomas Allen president Jim Allen approached him about a possible sale in order to return the parent company “back to its core business, which is distribution.” Dundurn will release the […]
Barnes & Noble Increases Historical Earnings, Pays Lynch Severance, and Postpones Nook International Rollout
Barnes & Noble filed restated historical financial statements with the SEC after concluding that they had “overstated certain accruals for the periods prior to April 27, 2013, as a result of inadequate controls over the accrual reconciliation process at its distribution centers.” The company made a few other historical restatements as well. The primary effect was to increase their reportable earnings from the past three years–so the 2012 net loss got $4 million smaller; the 2011 loss got $5 million smaller; and the 2010 earnings rose $6 million. With those corrections, the company also filed their delayed annual report with […]
Houghton Hires Bankers for Potential IPO
Ever since Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s second bankruptcy reorganization in 2012, the company has aspired to offer shares to the public (giving their lender/owners a chance to recoup some money). A year ago ceo Linda Zecher told the press she hoped the company could prepare an IPO “over the next 18 to 24 months,” and now Reuters reports progress on that front, right on schedule. Sources say HMH has hired Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Wells Fargo to prepare an IPO. The current expectation is raise approximately $250 million in equity, with an offering aimed at the fourth […]