Sweden’s largest bookseller Akademibokhandeln has been sold to industrial group Volati, which purchased control from Accent Equity (along with acquiring minority stakes from a group of companies, including publisher Natur & Kultur). With 108 stores, Akademibokhandeln is said to comprise 35 percent of Sweden’s book sales. The group had sales last year of approximately $208 million, with ebitda of over $14 million. Though the purchase price was not disclosed, the press release says the chain has an enterprise of about 760 million Swedish krona, or about $88 million. BookNet Canada released their annual survey on the state of digital publishing […]
Finance
Corporate Briefs
O’Reilly Media’s PubFactory online publishing platform for journals, books, and reference works has been acquired by Sheridan, Managing director of Sheridan Journal Services Gary Kittredge says in the release, “We are delighted to offer our journal and book publishers this proven and comprehensive hosting and publishing platform. PubFactory will propel Sheridan into a new level of engagement with our customers as we extend our range of services from high-touch editorial production and print solutions to hosting our customers’ content – a complete package.” PubFactory will continue to be based out of Boston, MA. In Canada’s Newfoundland & Labrador, Breakwater Books […]
Barnes & Noble’s Market Cap At New Low
Pushed by yesterday’s marketwide slump, Barnes & Noble’s stock is now trading at levels that the company it’s lowest market capitalization in at least a decade, if not longer. This morning shares opened at $7.30 and were down slightly again, for a market cap of about $510 million. The stock had dipped to about $8.25 a share in early 2016, and the last big dip was in March 2011, when the price dropped a little below $9 a share — but there were fewer common shares outstanding then, since Liberty Media still held separate preferred shares at time. [Update/correx: There were fewer common […]
A Vote of Diminishing Confidence from Big Barnes & Noble Investor
On April 18, shortly before the official naming of Demos Parneros as ceo of Barnes & Noble, the company’s second largest investor David Abrams significantly reduced his holdings. Abrams and related companies sold 4.5 million shares of Barnes & Noble’s stock at $8.575 a share (and the movement of that big block is why the bookseller’s shares fell between April 18 and April 19. The leaves Abrams with approximately 5.9 million shares, or a little over 8 percent of shares outstanding, down from a holding of 14.33 percent. The last time Abrams bought BN stock, in February 2016, it was cheaper […]
Houghton to Layoff Hundreds of Employees, Take More Charges
As previewed just about a month ago, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt updated investors in an SEC filing on Tuesday on their planned restructuring. Their “organizational design change actions,” which will be “substantially complete” by the end of May 2017, are expected to reduce their employee count “by approximately 8 percent to 10 percent across [their] various locations.” As of the end of 2016, HMH had about 4,500 employees, so that suggests layoffs of roughly 360 to 450 people in all. They now say that the various changes planned will result in total charges of approximately $41 million to $45 million. Severance and other termination […]
Bezos Tells Shareholders and Employees It Will Never Be Day 2
Amazon ceo Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to shareholders focuses on particulars of his management philosophy more than anything, but it starts with his answer to a common question: “‘Jeff, what does Day 2 look like?'” “That’s a question I just got at our most recent all-hands meeting. I’ve been reminding people that it’s Day 1 for a couple of decades. I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me. I spend time thinking about this topic. “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed […]