Bertelsmann has finally made good on changing the company’s overall legal structure to SE & Co. KGaA, which is often used for businesses with a family-style ownership and structure, from AG (a privately-owned joint stock company.) In a brief announcement Bertelsmann stressed the change was an “identity-preserving change of legal form” which won’t change their ownership structure and corporate structure, or anything for the company’s employees. But it could make it possible for Bertelsmann to raise capital by issuing shares to the public, without giving those public shareholders any meaningful control in how the company is run. Back in March […]
Finance
Barnes & Noble Stock Falls To Lowest Level Since April
With Barnes & Noble set to report first quarter earnings before the market opens on Tuesday, analysts and short sellers are trotting out their seasonal pessimism about the company’s prospects. The consensus expectation is that BN will post a loss of 96 cents per share on revenue of $1.48 billion, and on Wednesday morning Stiefel Nicolaus downgraded its rating from “buy” to “hold,” causing the shares to decline almost 6 percent, closing at $12.56 per share, its lowest level since April. (Shares are down again slightly so far Thursday morning.) The downgrade is based on sentiment or a hunch rather than […]
Wiley to Sell Frommer’s to Google
Wiley announced Monday morning it has “entered into a definitive agreement to sell all of its travel assets, including all of its interests in the Frommer’s brand,” to Google. The deal is said to include approximately 350 travel guides and the Frommers.com website. Terms of the sale were not released, which seems a little silly, since it’s material enough to Wiley that they will report it eventually. “A person close to the deal” tells the NYT Google will pay about $23 million, while “a person briefed on the deal” tells the WSJ the price is “around $25 million.” That’s not inconsistent with the size […]
People, Etc.
Vp, book production for HarperCollins John Vitale is leaving the company on August 24 after more than 44 years in the business (he began at Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., which was acquired by Harper & Row in 1977.) Replacing him is Tracey Menzies, who is being promoted to vp, production and creative operations and will oversee all print production for the publisher. Also at Harper, Kristine Macrides returns to the sales department as director of sales and retail marketing, overseeing day-to-day operations for the mass merch, club and ID sales channels (she has been director of marketing for Avon). Lillie […]
McGraw-Hill Education Sale Process Moves Forward
It’s clear that “sources” with an interest in seeing McGraw-Hill Education sold off for top dollar are going to keep the media informed as the bidding process moves along. In an “exclusive” report Reuters reveals that Apollo Global Management (first identified in a mid-July WSJ story) is among those to “put in initial bids.” Not surprisingly, Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners–who were partners in the underbid for Thomson Learning (which then became Cengage)–are also named in the story. They may be the only private equity firms to have made money in the education space over the last decade […]
Hachette UK Reduces Education Division
In the UK, Hachette is realigning its education businesses. The health sciences and higher education lines are being sold to Taylor & Francis, the Bookseller reports. CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson tells the magazine, “they were sub-scale and could not compete with the major, much larger, publishers in the area. After exploring a number of options, we decided that selling them to Taylor & Francis was the best outcome.” The consumer education line is being moved into Hodder & Stoughton. In accompanying personnel changes, Lis Tribe is being promoted to managing director of the reduced Hodder Education division and current ceo […]