Bloomberg Press, reported last November as slated for closure on an unspecified schedule while the company explored all options for what to do with the line, will become an imprint of Wiley. Wiley says they will work with Bloomberg to “extend the Bloomberg and BusinessWeek brands to long-form content in books and other formats” and they plan to “publish the content using all media platforms including print, e-books and digital.” Wiley president of professional and trade publishing Steve Kippur says, “This is a powerful alliance that leverages Wiley’s vast experience in publishing business and finance books. The relationship takes advantage […]
Finance
More Layoffs at Borders' Stores
Last week Borders is said to have eliminated more jobs across its stores, according to numerous anonymous employee posts on a company forum, though the retailer has not made any official public announcement of reductions. Many individual posts have been made by people who held training supervisor and inventory supervisor positions who say they werelet go. This quote is said to be taken from an internal announcement: “We made the decision to eliminate the training supervisor position so that we could allocate more hours to the sales floor. Training remains an important function in our stores, and the responsibilities of […]
Borders Reportedly Looking to Extend Credit Agreement
The folks at Debtwire–the same outfit, we should remember, that misreported a story earlier this year contending that some vendors had retained counsel to collect monies owed to them by Borders–has filed another long story, carried on the FT web site, about Borders’ credit issues. Close watchers of the company know that there have been two significant liquidity deadlines: their $42.5 million loan from principal owner Pershing Square is due April 1, and the revolving credit agreement that allows them to conduct business expires in July 2011. Getting that credit line renewed in today’s world of restricted lending, particularly since […]
Announcements
David Patterson has left Holt, where he was an editor, and starts today at Foundry Literary + Media as an agent. Irish bookselling chain Hughes & Hughes declared bankruptcy. Ulster Bank appointed David Carson of Deloitte as receiver. The company blamed a variety of factors, from reduced air traffic which suppressed business at its successful airport bookstores to higher rents and the internet.Irish Times Gordon Wood won the American History Book Prize for Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, which includes the title of American Historian Laureate. Mexican author and guerrilla movement scholar Carlos Montemayor, 62, […]
Burkle Continues Agitating Against Barnes & Noble Board
It was fairly obvious that the Barnes & Noble board of directors would decline investor Ron Burkle’s request that they grant him an exception from the poison pill provision that they adopted specifically to block Burkle and his friends from threatening the Riggios’ de facto control over the company. But in a new letter to the board, Burkle expresses surprise that the company’s independent directors did not contact him before dismissing his concerns, and he asks for a meeting: “I would have hoped that the non-management members of the Board would have contacted me before unilaterally rejecting my request that […]
Alibris Buys Monsoon
Online used-book marketplace Alibris’s parent company is acquiring Oregon-based marketplace selling solutions company Monsoon for a combination of cash and stock. (Monsoon helps sellers list their good across multiple marketplaces.) Alibris owner Oak Hill Capital provided funding along with additional bank financing. The two companies will continue to operate separately. Monsoon ceo Kanth Gopalpur will continue to run the company. He says in the announcement, “This transaction will provide the combined Monsoon-Alibris customer base with even more opportunities to expand their businesses and increase sales. We will be able to take advantage of additional resources, technology, and capital in order […]