BookTour.com, which has been privately funded by founder Chris Anderson, has raised $350,000 in Series A funding. According to the regulatory filing, backers include Amazon.com.
Finance
Random UK Layoffs Claim 33 Positions; Cambridge Likely to Limit Printing Cuts
A month ago Random House UK announced their intention to cut staff by approximately 5 percent (as did Harper UK) and now the Bookseller says that the company announced the elimination of 33 jobs today. Individuals were not named, but the magazine says that cutbacks included Transworld senior publishing director Francesca Liversidge and other “senior editorial” people.Bookseller In other UK publishing layoffs, lobbying of the eighteen academics who comprise the Syndicate that governs Cambridge University Press has raised “hope that at least half of the [book printing] jobs threatened by the restructuring will be saved,” the Guardian reports. Director of […]
Author Solutions Buys Canada's Trafford
Author Solutions continues to roll up its rivals, now buying Canadian self-publisher Trafford Publishing. CEO Kevin Weiss tells the WSJ his company will have close to $100 million in sales in 2009. Trafford ceo Geoffrey Reid, who will remain in that position, tells the paper, “We felt that Author Solutions was consolidating the market, and we wanted to be part of that.”WSJ
Pershing Square Gives Borders Another Year
The biggest worry of the year for book publishers has been answered, as Borders appears to have been granted another 12 months to sort itself. Leading shareholder and lender of last resort Pershing Square has extended their $42.5 million term loan to Borders until April 1, 2010. But Pershing has once again won big concessions for that extension: The “put” option to buy the Paperchase chain (which Pershing never wanted to own in the first place) will expire, and the big grants of 14.7 million warrants will be reset from the previous price to $7 a share down to today’s […]
Ratings Cuts for Bertelsmann and Scholastic
Moody’s Investors Service lowered its ratings outlook on Bertelsmann, citing the advertising-market slump, waning consumer spending, weakening sales in the company’s book-publishing and magazine segments and the expectation of “further declines” this year. The ratings service expressed worries about the company’s ability to control debt that could “well come under additional pressure in 2009 given the difficult operating environment,” Nonetheless, Moody’s said Bertelsmann has “adequate” liquidity to meet its near-term needs.WSJ Separately, Standard & Poor’s reduced their rating on Scholastic to “BB-” last week, a day after Moody’s also downgraded the publisher’s debt. S&P credit analyst Tulip Lim said the […]
BAM Board Buys Up $8M of Stock
Books-A-Million’s board of directors has put into effect a plan to buy up to $5 million in shares of company stock as of April 30, replacing a previous plan where BAM bought $1.8 million of its stock. The company has 15.6 million shares of stock currently worth about $68.1 million.