New ceo Ron Marshall declares “as we address the immediate priority of getting our company’s financial house in order, one of our goals is to more aggressively reduce annual expenses” and to that end the company announced the elimination of six vice-president and 10 director-level jobs, mostly at their Ann Arbor headquarters. Among those whose positions are being cut are evp of US store Ken Armstrong, and svp and CIO Susan Harwood (who was a high-profile hire in 2007), and svp of e-business Kevin Ertell who led the development of Borders.com. VPs of real estae, human resources serivces and creative […]
Finance
Filing Supports Higher Price Estimate for AbeBooks Acquisition
When Amazon announced its deal to acquire AbeBooks in August, observers were all over the map in estimating the undisclosed sale price. TechVibes–where former Abe executive (and still director) Boris Wertz is a director and investor–estimated a sale price of $90 million to $120 million, but other posters there argued for estimates ranging from $40 million to $75 million. TechFlash notes that Amazon’s recently filed 10K report declares they spent $432 million on acquisitions in the past year. With Audible valued at approximately $300 million and the other purchases comprising much smaller units–the balance of Shelfari.com, Fabric.com, and IMDB’s acquisition […]
Boston Catches on to Houghton's Debt Burden
The Boston Globe has a long piece on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s financial challenges, though there’s little that is new in the piece. Spokesman Josef Blumenfeld now says that “since Houghton’s reported decision last fall to suspend acquisition of new titles, it is signing new books again.” Former Houghton Mifflin ceo Nader Darehshori’s appraisal is that “the debt is so overwhelming, there’s just no way. They borrowed more than the value of the company. They will be lucky if the value is half of what they owe.”Globe
Layoffs at Hyperion Parent
On Thursday, Disney-ABC Television Group president Anne Sweeney told employees that the division would eliminate 200 jobs spread throughout the group’s units and would leave another 200 open positions unfilled. The division employs almost 7,000 people in all. Hyperion is part of the group–but publisher Ellen Archer tells us there have been no layoffs at the book publishing unit.LAT
Amazon Beats the Street (and Passes BN)
Anaysts exected Amazon to stumble in the fourth quarter due to the economy and the etailer surprised investors with another strong report card. Sales increased 18 percent to $6.70 billion as operating income was flat at $272 million. Net income rose 9 percent to $225 million in the fourth quarter, or 52 cents per share. (Analysts were expecting only 39 cents a share, and sales of $6.44 billion.) For the coming quarter, the company expects sales to continue growing from between 9 percent and 19 percent. North American media sales (defined as sales from all sellers in categories such as […]
Harper Presents Retirement Offer
This morning HarperCollins presented to US employees internally a voluntary retirement package, available to people over age 55 who have been with the company for more than five years. The offer was made to employees at the company’s New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles offices and their Scranton warehouse. It does not extend to Zondervan or any Harper units outside of the US for now; spokesperson Erin Crum notes that “each business area has different needs and legal requirements.” Noting that they company “has never done anything like this before,” Crum would not indicate a target number of job […]