The hearing to approve the auctions of Borders’ intellectual property assets set for today has been postponed to Thursday afternoon at 2:00. In the meantime, Barnes & Noble continues to decline to comment on what they purchased, though court filings so far imply the bookseller is acquiring almost everything that was up for sale (including domestic rights to the Borders names and web URLs, along with the customers lists to the extent that the privacy policy allows their sale and reuse) except for licenses to various Borders’ trademarks in other territories. Under the approved auction rules, Borders is supposed to […]
Finance
People, Etc.:
At this morning’s BISG annual meeting, the organization confirmed that vice chair Ken Michaels is now serving as co-chair of the organization’s board, alongside Dominique Raccah, who will step down from her position in a year. (Raccah took over as sole chair of the board last November when co-chair Andrew Weber left Random House.) Little, Brown, John Parsley has been promoted to executive editor. He joined the company in the fall of 2007. David Moldawer has joined Amazon Publishing as senior editor for the New York-based trade group, run by Larry Kirshbaum. Previously he was a senior editor at McGraw-Hill. At […]
Sourcebooks Establishes New Education Division, and More
Fast-growing Sourcebooks is launching a new education division that will incorporate and extend existing publications and programs for college students and the college-bound with a number of new initiatives. Initial staffing for the division will include six new positions in sales, marketing and information systems, continuing to draw on existing staff in editorial and publicity. The first new hires are: Technical architect Deb Kimminau, responsible for leading the design and development of new digital initiatives, which include MyMaxScore; programmer analyst Kavita Khanna, responsible for updating and implementing new technical requirements for the MyMaxScore adaptive learning software; and education sales manager […]
Pearson to Relocate Near Penguin In NY
Pearson intends to relocate Education division employees from White Plains, NY and Upper Saddle River, NJ to Manhattan in 2014, right near Penguin’s NYC offices. The company says it expects to add 600 new media and technology jobs as well. The mayor’s office says in a press release Pearson will reap “at least $13.5 million in city-granted energy-cost savings and state tax credits over 10 years” for the 270,000 square feet of space they are taking at 330 Hudson Street, with the possibility of other incentives as well. Pearson is said to be investing $21 million in renovating the space. […]
Borders Auctions IP Off to Multiple Bidders, Including Barnes & Noble and Berjaya Books
Borders held an auction for its intellectual property Wednesday and Hilco Streambank, which conducted the proceedings and fielded offers from ten bidders, announced they had sold various assets for nearly $15.8 million. Hilco Streambank was vague on exactly who bought what asset, initially naming only Barnes & Noble and Berjaya Books among the “multiple bidders” who each acquired pieces of Borders’ IP, including a global portfolio of trademarks, the Borders, Waldenbooks and Brentano’s trade names, various domain names, and the Borders.com website. Barnes & Noble paid approximately $13.9 million, but no one has specified yet what they bought.Berjaya Books owns […]
Borders: Chief Account Officer Terminated, Next Jump Countersues
VP and chief accounting officer Glen Tomaszewski was terminated from his position on September 2, according to an SEC filing last week. The legal battle between Borders and marketing firm Next Jump is not over yet, despite last week’s agreement that Next Jump would take down a website that redirected Borders Rewards customers to its own rewards site, OO.com. Next Jump countered with a suit of its own, Reuters reports, saying Borders allowed Next Jump to transfer customer accounts to OO.com, but then accused the marketing firm of stealing the accounts as a pretext for recovering damages, in essence “duping” […]