Barnes & Noble [BKS] announced this morning that the company will acquire the privately-owned Barnes & Noble College operation principally owned by Len Riggio for $596 million, or about $460 million net of the college unit’s cash on hand. One major reason for the combination is the emergence of e-books and BN’s renewed attempts to build their online offerings and compete with Amazon. As Riggio says in the announcement, “Although both companies previously thrived as separate entities, owing to distinctions in their product offerings, the definition of textbooks and trade books has become increasingly blurred. This trend will accelerate with […]
Finance
Back on the Block: Reed to Sell Most Magazines, As Tad Smith Steps Down
Reed Elsevier will try once again to sell off a chunk of their trade magazines from the Reed Business Information division. The company terminated the first attempt at a complete sale of the division late last year when they were unable to extract “acceptable terms” from bidders. They said then they would “divest RBI in the medium term when conditions are more favorable.” But just a week ago, new Reed ceo Ian Smith was tipped in the Telegraph as readying a new strategy to “retain the core business.” This morning RBI ceo Keith Jones told employees they intend “to divest […]
Barnes & Noble Shifts Buying Team, Consolidates Proprietary Publishing at Sterling
Barnes & Noble announced two reorganizations internally earlier this week, one affecting the book chain’s buying team and the other related to their proprietary publishing programs. The buying/merchandising group has been realigned following the promotion of Jaime Carey in May to the position of chief merchandising officer. The company’s “supply chain czar,” vp of inventory management & vendor relations Joe Gonnella, now moves up to vp, adult trade, reporting to Carey, while continuing to oversee vendor relations. Antoinette Ercolano, who has held the buying position now being taken by Gonnella, moves over to a new job supervising regional buying and […]
As Tipped, Valco Buys Borders UK
As first indicated by the Independent earlier this week, claims that Borders UK wasn’t for sale were blatantly false, and restructuring company Hilco’s private equity arm Valco Capital Partners is indeed buying the chain from Luke Johnson, the Bookseller reports. Current chief executive Philip Downer will continue to lead the company after a management buyout in tandem with finance director Mark Little. No figures are included in the report, though it was thought that the ailing group would be unloaded for a nominal sum. Downer told the Bookseller in a follow-up story that among their immediate plans are a working […]
McGraw-Hill Drops Another 340 Education Jobs In Reorg
The latest in a series of reorganizations of McGraw-Hill’s textbook division sounds so happy that you could almost overlook the news that they are eliminating another 340 jobs from the unit, taking a pre-tax charge of $14 million. Those cuts follow two previous purges since early 2008 that already eliminated 455 jobs within the education line, still making this latest reduction the single largest of the three rounds of layoffs. The company’s announcement, however, simply focuses on “creating achievement-focused preK-12 education group to help students develop 21st century skills.” That new focus somehow accounts for most of the layoffs: “the […]
Bookselling: Borders UK May Have A Buyer; Taiwan Companies Pair for eBook Launch; Bookseller Advises Authors On Signings
While still denying that Borders UK is even up for sale and insisting that Clearwater Corporate Finance has been hired only to help “seek out funding opportunities,” it looks like the ailing chain may have a buyer, or at least a company ready to take it off their hands. The Independent reports that the private equity arm of restructuring company Hilco, Valco Capital Partners, “plans to acquire the entire shareholding of Borders UK and take the company forward.” Reportedly they are “offering to take on the Borders superstores, Books Etc and Borders Express shops in a deal that could save […]