Pershing Square executive Richard “Mick” Maguire will become non-executive chairman of the board of directors at Borders, taking over from Larry Pollock, the company announced this morning. McGuire joined the board in January 2008 “in connection with his role as a partner at Pershing Square Capital Management,” and he is leaving the investment firm now “to pursue entrepreneurial interests.” Pollock will remain on the board, and Mike Archbold moves up to lead director. The NYT, which had an advance look at the announcement, confirms in its story that new ceo Ron Marshall was recruited by Maguire. Borders “has been working […]
Finance
Pershing Exits Barnes & Noble
Pershing Square disclosed in an SEC filing Friday that as of December 22, the investment firm sold its holdings in Barnes & Noble stock. They had previously disclosed holding an 11.8 percent stake in BN.
Nicolas Cheetham to Run New Atlantic Books Imprint; Quercus Cuts Salaries; Layoffs at Waterstone's
Editorial Director at Quercus Nicolas Cheetham will move to Atlantic Books in early February where he will be publishing director of Corvus, a new genre fiction imprint. Publishing approximately 15 titles a year and launching in fall 2009, Cheetham will focus on crime, thrillers and speculative fiction, building a list of around 15 books per year. B2B Cheetham’s position will not be filled at Quercus, and another unnamed employee has left the company. Quercus staff has “voluntarily taken a pay cut to avoid the need” for layoffs, the Bookseller reports. In other cutbacks in the UK, bookseller Waterstone’s is eliminating […]
What New Management Is Costing Borders
Borders filed documents with the SEC regarding severance payments for George Jones and the inducements provided to Ron Marshall to take over. Jones’s parting gifts include 18 months’ base salary plus target bonus, plus 75 percent of his promised retention bonus, good for $510,000, as long as he provides “transition consulting services” for the next three months. New ceo Marshall gets an immediate signing bonus of $250,000, plus a relocation allowance of up to $100,000 and $15,000 in legal fees. He has a “fixed three-year term of employment” with base salary of $750,000 a year and “annual bonuses at a […]
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Disputes Credit Rating Downgrade
Moody’s downgraded Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s substantial debt in late December, concluding that “shortfalls in HMH’s business plan” and cutbacks in US education budgets would keep the company from bringing its debt down to their target of 9 times ebitda. The agency “estimated that HMH’s debt stood at 10.5 times ebitda at the end of September, and warned of liquidity pressures and ‘a likely default’ under its senior secured loan covenants unless these were amended,” the FT reports. Additionally, HMH’s parent company Education Media & Publishing “was named as one of the European companies at highest risk of default by Standard […]
More Cuts at McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill announced “it restructured a limited number of business operations and corporate functions in the fourth quarter of 2008 to serve its markets more efficiently in the current economic environment while positioning the company for future growth.” Included in those cuts they shed another 215 jobs in the McGraw-Hill Education division, the hardest-hit of the four areas that were restructured. Those reductions came on top of 240 positions eliminated at the Education division earlier in the year.Announcement