The Seattle Times offers up two slabs of red meat for those who worry about Amazon’s growing power and how they wield it in introducing a four-part series on the company. The lengthy business piece includes only these two morsels of news: academic and nonfiction publisher McFarland and professional and academic publisher Berkshire Publishing Group have also declined to accept Amazon’s push for moving academic publishers from their traditional short discount to more of a trade discount schedule. McFarland, which appears to use the Advantage program, declined to accept a proposed 45 percent discount as of January 1. (The publisher […]
Finance
Corporate News: eSubscriptions from F+W; Princeton Review Sells Test-Prep Business; Hachette UK eBook Sales Now Over 20%; and More
F+W Media has launched the first of a series of ebook subscription sites across the company’s verticals. They are beginning with the Artist’s Network eBooks Book Club, a collection of over 100 full-color art instruction titles. An annual subscription costs $199. Impelsys’s iPublishCentral is their technology partner. CEO David Nussbaum says they hope to enroll “thousands” of subscribers in the first year. (The company already enjoys success with other subscriptions for this community, through their Artists Network Video Network.) The next F+W communities to launch ebook subscription plans will be writing, design, outdoors/weapons, woodworking, and romance. Princeton Review is selling […]
International: Barnes & Noble Incorporates Digital Media Company In Germany; Dutch Book Chain Selexyz Files for Bankruptcy; And More
As another piece of Barnes & Noble’s coming international expansion, TechCrunch notes a Buchreport finding that BN incorporated a new company, Barnes & Noble Digital Media GmbH, in Germany on March 15. Company vp, general counsel and corporate secretary Eugene DeFelice is listed on the new Germany company’s incorporation papers, from which one can infer that BN has formed the legal entity but does not yet have an operational plan. BN already has an existing partnership with German bookstore aggregator BookWire. Once-dominant Dutch book chain Selexyz has been suffering from serious financial trouble since last fall (and never really recovered […]
Shareholder Suit Against Riggio and Two Barnes & Noble Directors Moves to June Trial
A shareholder lawsuit against Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio and two former company directors, Lawrence Zilavy and Michael Del Giudice, over the public company’s 2009 buyout of BN College will move forward to a trial tentatively set to begin June 18. Delaware Chancery Court Judge Leo Strine dismissed three independent directors from the suit, along with vice chairman Steve Riggio (who had recused himself from voting on the acquisition). As Bloomberg summarizes, “the investors argue that the board allowed Riggio to dictate terms and timing of the 2009 buyout of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers Inc. and didn’t force […]
HMH Downgraded Again With Another Restructuring “Likely”
With declining textbooks revenues, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s $3.1 billion in debt was downgraded last week to a lowly Caa 3 rating by Moody’s, which said the publisher’s finances are “unsustainable without a significant rebound in earnings” and judged “a debt restructuring in the near term is increasingly likely.” The ratings service says privately-held HMH’s sales fell 16 percent last year, and are targeted to fall 5 percent this year. They had already downgraded HMH’s debt in January as well. The near-term problem is that “Houghton’s management indicated in the fourth quarter earnings call that the company…doesn’t have funding for all the […]
Investor Tries New Path For Barnes & Noble Break-Up; Flammarion Bidding Moves Forward
Investor Michael Glickstein of G Asset Management, 30, who has been writing letters to the Barnes & Noble board for almost a year asking for a break-up of the company, is trying a new approach. In his newest letter, Bloomberg reported Friday, Glickstein at least theoretically offered to “buy” half of Barnes & Noble College in a spinoff of that division. It’s not clear that G Asset, which appears to be a one-man shop, has available the assets or borrowing power to make such an offer. (G Asset has declared ownership of a modest number of shares of BN stock, […]