Imagine Publishing, started last year by Charles and Jeremy Nurnberg after they left Sterling, has been acquired by Charlesbridge Publishing. Both men will remain with the Imagine imprint, with Charles as publisher and Jeremy as vp of sales. Imagine titles will start shipping immediately from the Charlesbridge warehouse in Massachusetts. Charles Nurnberg says in the announcement, “Our growing success motivated us to seek a publisher that could handle the needs of our expanding list. Charlesbridge has the full range of promotional and distribution capabilities that Imagine needs.” Charlesbridge president Brent Farmer says, “we look forward to enhancing the enduring relationships […]
Finance
Barnes & Noble Has July 8 Court Date with Burkle
Barnes & Noble reveals in their annual report with the SEC that investor Ron Burkle’s lawsuit against the company filed in Delaware Chancery Court in early May is scheduled to go to trial July 8. Burkle’s Yucaipa American Alliance is seeking to overturn the poison poll BN adopted to keep him from acquiring more than 20 percent of the bookseller’s shares. Burkle has even more reason to be agitated now than when he filed the suit, with Barnes & Noble shares down over 30 percent from two months ago. In the standard risk factors enumerated in the bookseller’s SEC filing, […]
Barnes & Noble Drops, Amazon Stops
The clobbering of Barnes & Noble’s stock continued yesterday after our post following their conference call, down over 19 percent for the day on trading volume more than four times higher than usual. It was the largest one-day drop in the bookseller’s shares since November 2001. At current prices that leaves the company’s market capitalization at a little over $750 million (and remember that it was just 9 months ago that the company itself decided the BN College unit was worth $460 million). In a rough day across Wall Street, Amazon shares declined as well, down approximately 7.5 percent. As […]
Stock Market Turns On Barnes & Noble As Executives Detail Strategy
Following Barnes & Noble’s fourth quarter loss and prediction of more losses in the year ahead driven by their investments in technology, investors unloaded on the company’s stock in morning trading. On very heavy volume, the booksellers’ shares were down as much as 17 percent in the first hour of trading, touching levels not reached since the depths of the 2008 market collapse, before rebounding noticeably, down about 10.5 percent as we post. (The market is down broadly, with the S&P 500 off about 2.5 percent, and Amazon is down almost 5 percent this morning.) Having likely anticipated the market’s […]
eDeals: Symtio Sold to Libre Digital; Overdrive Adds Disney and Partners with Internet Archive, As IA Invents Their Own Rules for Lending Older Titles As eBooks
Zondervan has sold the technology and infrastructure behind their Symtio business to LibreDigital (in which Zondervan parent HarperCollins is also an investor). The sale covers “the Symtio e-commerce technology, existing e-commerce contracts and applications, and key e-commerce staff,” but not Symtio’s retail card business, which the release says ” Zondervan is in negotiations to sell separately.” It’s a curious bifurcation, since Symtio has always promoted their “digital product cards” as the heart of the business that lets physical retailers sell and activate cards that allow the downloading of digital media. LibreDigital ceo Russell Reeder says in the announcement they will […]
Zelnick Media Leads Buyout of Alloy
Publicly-traded Alloy Inc. has agreed to buy bought by an investor group led by ZelnickMedia in a cash deal valued at $126.5 million. The purchase price is a 14 percent premium over yesterday’s closing stock price. Alloy’s senior management is also investing in the deal. Other investors include Natixis Caspian Private Equity, Rosemont Solebury Co-Investment Fund, and GenSpring Family Offices. Former Nickelodeon ceo Geraldine Laybourne will take over as chairman of the board, with co-founders Matt Diamond and Jim Johnson staying on as ceo and coo. Former coo of Marvel Entertainment Bill Jemas is also joining the board. Strauss Zelnick […]