Two shareholders who together hold more than 19.2 percent of common shares in Quarto have written to the board of directors asking for a special meeting and the removal of Laurence Orbach – co-founder, ceo, chairman, and the company’s largest shareholder – as a director of the company. (Orbach is set to step down as ceo next year, with current coo Marcus Leaver to replace him.) They also ask that Tim Chadwick be named to the board, though no details were provided as to why this should be necessary. In a statement the Quarto Board said it “believes that it […]
Finance
McGraw-Hill Hires Bankers to Investigate Education Sale, Too
A day after McGraw-Hill filed SEC documents offering financial details about the planned spinoff MH Education company, the NY Post reports that the company has also hired Evercore Partners and Goldman Sachs to explore an outright sale of the unit. As usual private equity firms are tipped as the most likely bidders, though the paper notes in an understatement that private equity has “a mixed record in the education publishing and testing space.” The source or the paper–it’s hard to tell which–asserts that “the education unit is worth an estimated $3 billion, based on its $400 million in Ebitda, or earnings […]
Harper Closes Thomas Nelson Purchase
HarperCollins has finally closed their acquisition of Thomas Nelson, first announced at the end of October 2011, following a lengthy examination period by the Department of Justice. Harper says “Thomas Nelson will continue to operate as an independent company with its unique editorial focus on inspirational and Christian content. Details, such as how Thomas Nelson will benefit from HarperCollins global print and digital platform, will be forthcoming.”
McGraw-Hill Files SEC Documents on New Education Company
McGraw-Hill has filed the first extensive SEC document (formally a Form 10) providing disclosure and details about the proposed spinoff, freestanding McGraw-Hill Education company. Once the spinoff is completed, they intend to list the new shares on the NY Stock Exchange–like the current listing–and will trade as MHED. Shareholders of record of the current McGraw-Hill stock will receive one share in the new education company for every three shares they hold. McGraw-Hill Education had 2011 sales of $2.292 billion–down 5.8 percent from the prior year–with directly attributable net income of $162 million. For the first quarter of 2012, sales for […]
Germany’s Church to Donate, Rather than Sell, Weltbild
Erotica may have gone mainstream for trade publishers but that doesn’t make it any better for a Church-owned publisher. The 12 German Catholic dioceses that own bookselling and publishing giant Weltbild have formally cancelled the sale offering of the company after more than 7 months–either because there were no viable offers, or because the organizations favored continuing to use company to benefit their causes. The church will donate its shares to a non-profit ecclesiastical foundation instead, providing the needed distance from the publisher following last year’s sensational focus on some of the erotica issued by the company. The news was […]
Cengage CEO Dunn Will Move to New Role As Company, Extends Some Debt Payments
Cengage president and ceo Ron Dunn wrote to employees on Thursday to announce that he will “soon step aside…and take on a new role as executive chairman,” promising he will serve in that role for at least 3 years. Dunn is 65 and admits, “realistically, we’re still some time away from making Cengage Learning a publicly traded company through an Initial Public Offering of stock; and when the IPO does occur, investors will rightly expect that the CEO will continue in that role for several years. Those facts, taken together, lead to an inescapable conclusion: it’s time for a younger […]