In the UK, three members of management have acquired The History Press in a buyout from private equity firm Octopus Investments. Finance director Gareth Swain will take over as managing director since former MD Tim Davies did not participate in the buyout and has left the company. Laura Perehinec is now publishing director and Jamie Kinnear is local history publisher. The publisher lost £2.3 million in 2015 on sales of £4.8 million, after losing £1.6 million in 2014 on sales of £7.8 million. At the same time, in a separate transaction, The History Press sold the Pitkin Publishing imprint to Pavilion Books. Separately, investment firm […]
Finance
Murray Shares More HarperCollins Figures
HarperCollins ceo Brian Murray spoke at a Deutsche Bank investor conference in Palm Beach, FL on Monday, providing a measured but bullish review of the publisher’s strengths and prospects. Throughout the interview Murray shared a variety of data points. As is the case broadly, “the fastest growing component of our digital business is audio,” Murray said, accounting for “about $50 million worth business last year.” (In the most recent fiscal year Harper’s total digital sales were roughly $310 million, incorporating both ebooks and digital audio.) Murray noted, “Audible has been growing leaps and bounds and I really think we’re going […]
Hachette UK Buys Bookouture
Hachette UK has announced the acquisition of digital publisher Bookouture, founded by Oliver Rhodes in 2012. Rhodes will continue to run the unit, and will also serve in the new position of digital publisher at Hachette UK, “steering and advising” to “help increase ebook sale across the group,” and join the company’s board. He will report to David Shelley, and Little Brown UK will publish some of Bookouture’s titles in print. Rhodes says the acquisition “will help us to build on the significant momentum we already have and achieve even greater things for our authors.” The Bookseller notes that Bookouture has […]
Family Christian Stores to Liquidate and Close
The largest chain of Christian book and merchandise stores Family Christian announced that it will liquidate its assets and close all of their outlets, comprising over 240 stores in 36 states. The statement did not provide a timetable for the liquidation. President Chuck Bengochea says in the press release, “We had two very difficult years post-bankruptcy. Despite improvements in product assortment and the store experience, sales continued to decline. In addition, we were not able to get the pricing and terms we needed from our vendors to successfully compete in the market.” The chain was bought in bankruptcy reorganization in August 2015, […]
Corporate: Adams Acquisition, Capstone Sells Digital Platform, and More
Simon & Schuster’s parent company CBS filed their annual report with the SEC at the end of last week. While it does not directly state the purchase for Adams Media, acquired in the fourth quarter of 2016, a little arithmetic yields the answer: S&S paid approximately $42 million to purchase the publishing unit from FW Media. CBS spent a total of $92 million on acquisitions during the year, and in the first quarter they paid approximately $50 million to acquire 247Sports, a digital media business. In other M&A news, Capstone formally announced the sale of their digital learning platform myON to tech investment […]
People, Etc.
Rose Hilliard has joined Audible as executive editor in their Original Publishing division, bolstering their acquisitions of original audiobooks and audio-first projects. She was senior editor at St. Martin’s. Jessica Renheim has been promoted to senior editor at Dutton. Publisher Christine Ball said in the announcement, “As you all know she is one of the hardest workers around and she is part of the Dutton fabric.” At Viking Children’s, Kendra Levin was recently promoted to executive editor while Maggie Rosenthal was promoted to assistant editor. At University of North Carolina Press, Brandon Proia has been promoted to senior editor. Chris Wellbelove will move to […]