Similar to moves at Pearson and HarperCollins, Macmillan ceo John Sargent announced a salary freeze starting January 1 for employees making more than $50,000. “All bonus plans will stay in effect, but all are sensitive to individual company profitability and individual performance. Thus the impact on individual bonus plans will vary.” Sargent notes: “Since I spoke to you a month ago about the economic crisis and its impact on our company, I can’t say much has changed. We are now clearly in a recession and there is still no clarity on how long or deep it will be. What is […]
Finance
Pesce Remains Confident
In the Wiley conference call, ceo William Pesce noted that in the trade “Sell-through and reorders through major accounts were weak” and added that “we are operating in a very challenging retail environment, mainly in the States, but also abroad. Clearly, market conditions are having an adverse effect on our PT business.” But he also criticized other ceos and expressed a strong belief in Wiley’s future: “Wiley has endured the War of 1812, The Civil War, Two World Wars, The Great Depression and the ups and down of many economic cycles and we will navigate through the current turmoil. We […]
Canada's Thomas Allen Postpones Spring Until Fall
Similar to the recent move by Atlas & Co., Canada’s Thomas Allen Publishers is “postponing” most of their planned spring 2009 releases until the fall. The company “generally releases only 10 to 12 books per year,” the National Post notes. President Jim Allen says, “We are postponing a few of our spring titles due to the fact that we’re not ready to publish them. This happens from time to time in book publishing for a variety or reasons, and given the literary nature of our list and the economic climate we’re in, we have to be absolutely certain that we […]
RBI: One Bidder Left
The Independent says that Bain Capital is the only remaining bidder for Reed Elsevier’s magazine unit, as TPG has dropped out. Facing a bid of about $1 billion–half of what they were hoping for, “Reed Elsevier is understood to be unhappy with some of the conditions of Bain’s bid, which includes a complicated earn-out structure – a move that would effectively tie key executives to RBI for a number of years.” They also report that ceo Crispin Davis has “invited” Apollo Group–which dropped out of the bidding earlier in the year (featured in the Sunday’s NYT business section for their […]
HMH Speaks: "Streamlining" Underway, with "Reduction of Some [Hundreds of?] Positions"
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt confirmed today “it is moving forward with the planned combination of various of its businesses into a new K-12 organization comprised of School Publishers, Holt McDougal, Supplemental Publishers, Heinemann, HMH Learning Technology and International Publishers. These businesses were brought together with the acquisition of Harcourt by Houghton Mifflin in December 2007, and the integration process has been underway since that time.” They note that “the streamlining of the business will result in the elimination of some positions, even as new roles are created that will let the company serve educators and students in new and unique ways.” […]
Bertram's Sale Imminent?
Michael Neil’s latest quote on Bertram’s: “We are up for sale and a sale agreement is imminent. We are confident it will be sorted by the end of the week.”Norwich paper