Following a successful year, and in response to the rising cost of living, Bloomsbury increased their annual salary increase for employees in all territories to 5 percent. They will also give staff a bonus of up to 6 percent, a program that reportedly began last year. A spokesperson told The Bookseller: “Our staff will share in this success and this year’s review has been conducted considering both the company’s success and the cost of living crisis. We also have an interim September pay review to ensure those staff who joined later in the financial year are included.” Separately, Pearson announced […]
Finance
Pearson Rejects Revised Apollo Buyout; Shareholders Will Have to Wait for Management’s Promises
Private equity firm Apollo Global’s third offer to buyout Pearson, made on March 28, was “unanimously rejected” by the board, which turned down 884.2 pence per share (or roughly $8.8 billion). The board says the offer “significantly undervalued the Company and its future prospects,” though the stock market has generally disagreed with that assessment: The shares had been trading for between 600 and 650 pence a share for the few months prior to the offer, and have not sustained at the offer levels since late 2018 and early 2019. Share are down about 5 percent today on the news, trading […]
Sourcebooks Acquires Duopress
Sourcebooks has acquired Duopress, a “a minority-owned independent publisher of innovative, high-quality, and affordable books and gifts.” The Duopress list includes “board books, regional board books, counting books, and doodle books,” as well as nonfiction middle-grade titles and more. Duopress founder Mauricio Velázquez de León said, “I’ve always admired the energy and publishing IQ of Dominique Raccah and her extraordinary team at Sourcebooks, and we are incredibly excited to start this new chapter for duopress.”
More On the Control of Scholastic: Interesting History, But Don’t Expect Insight Into the Future
It seems that a number of good journalists and publications are going to waste a lot of energy raking through gossip about the late Dick Robinson and current controlling owner and chair of Scholastic, Iole Lucchese. The pretense is to inform about what might happen next at the venerated children’s publisher: “Now there may be a showdown brewing over billions of dollars in kids’ fare,” Vanity Fair puts it in the teaser for the latest version of the story, appearing in their April issue. But the claim is disingenuous since there is, and has been, no news or updates about […]
Apollo Has Been Trying to Acquire Pearson
Private equity company Apollo Global Management has tried twice to purchase educational publisher Pearson since last November. Pearson declined an 800 pence per share in November and another offer of 854.2 pence per share on March 7, finding that Apollo “significantly undervalued the Company and its future prospects.” On Friday, following online rumors, Apollo said formally that it “notes the recent market speculation in relation to Pearson and confirms it is in the preliminary stages of evaluating a possible cash offer by certain of Apollo’s affiliated funds” to buy Pearson. Under London Stock Exchange rules, Apollo has until April 8 […]
M&A: Sterling Acquires Boxer Books
Sterling Publishing completed a deal to acquire London-based children’s book publisher Boxer Books. The acquisition includes all of Boxer’s backlist and frontlist titles. The imprint will keep its name under Union Square & Co., which previously distributed Boxer Books in the US. Boxer publisher David Bennett will continue to manage the imprint, reporting to Union Square cco and publisher Emily Meehan. “We are proud to be providing a new home for Boxer Books and publisher David Bennett. I’ve long admired his curated approach to children’s book publishing,” Meehan said in a release. “His titles explore imaginative ideas and concepts, all […]