Lagardere looked to have triumphed over agitation from activist shareholder Amber Capital this spring, when some leading French investors provided support to the company and its managing partner Arnaud Lagardere. Billionaire Vincent Bollore and Vivendi (which he controls) had bought shares in the company and voted to support Mr. Lagardere, and then Groupe Arnault bought a 25 percent stake in Lagardère Capital & Management from Mr. Lagardere. But last week Vivendi surprised French investors by switching sides and signing a “pact” with Amber in seeking to shake up Lagardere’s management and board. Citing “the very poor results announced” at the […]
Finance
People, Etc.
Danya Kukafka will join Aevitas Creative Management as an agent, representing select projects alongside Michelle Brower. Previously, she was an assistant editor at Riverhead. Loan Le has been promoted to editor at Atria, reporting to Lindsay Sagnette. Allison Lewis has joined Sourcebooks as marketing specialist. At Bonnier Books UK Helen Wicks has been promoted to executive director for children’s trade and Elise Burns to group sales, marketing and PR director. Historian and author Bernard Bailyn, 97, “whose award-winning books on early American history reshaped the study of the origins of the American Revolution,” died on Friday. Best known for The […]
People, Etc.
Pronoy Sarkar has been promoted to editor at St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Allison Sundstrom has been promoted to associate art director, children’s at Sourcebooks. Nicole Lyons has been promoted to manager of operations at Wayside Publishing. Events The ALA has announced that its 2021 Midwinter Meeting, scheduled for January 22-26 in Indianapolis, will take place virtually due to COVID-19. ALA president Julius C. Jefferson, Jr. said in the release, “In the last few months, we have successfully pivoted our delivery to present the Virtual Event in June and ALA’s Holding Space tour series this summer. Though we very much hoped […]
WME Joins In Raising Assistants’ Compensation
William Morris Endeavor has responded to the #PayUpHollywood initiative by joining other large talent agencies in raising compensation for their assistants. The starting salary for assistants will go from $15 an hour — the legal minimum wage in New York City — to $18 an hour (or $37,440 annually). More importantly, given that almost no assistant can perform the expected duties in a standard work week, agency assistants are eligible for 10 hours of overtime (at time and a half, under the law), without pre-approval from supervisors. (That’s up to $270 a week, or as much as $13,500 across 50 […]
Barnes & Noble Education Agrees to Two New Directors Chosen by Shareholder Outerbridge
Barnes & Noble Education has negotiated a “cooperation agreement” with shareholder Outerbridge Capital Management, which holds a 13.4 percent stake in the company and had been looking to place four directors on the company’s board. As part of the agreement, Lowell W. Robinson joins the board now as an independent director, and Zachary Levenick will be nominated for election to the board at the next annual meeting. Outerbridge has agreed to support all of the company’s nominees for the board at that election, and “has also agreed to abide by certain customary standstill provisions.” That standstill agreement includes keeping Outerbridge […]
Briefs: Opening Trump Sales, Eason’s Layoffs and More
Simon & Schuster announced that Mary Trump‘s Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man sold more than 950,000 units in the US in its first day on sale, July 14. That sets “a company record.” (The previous record-holder was Bob Woodward’s FEAR, which the company had said sold 900,000 units on opening day in November 2018, and over 1.1 million units in its first week on sale.) A fourteenth hardcover printing on order will bring them to more than 1.15 million copies in print. Irish bookseller Eason’s will close all seven of their […]