Carolina Wren Press is acquiring the titles of John F. Blair, Publisher, and will relaunch the combined list in January publishing under the name Blair, distributed by Consortium. (John Blair has been winding down its own distribution arm this summer.) The Durham, NC-based nonprofit will officially change its name to Blair after the acquisition is completed….
International News
Canongate Acquires Severn House, and More
Canongate announced that it has purchased Severn House, for an undisclosed sum from Edwin Buckhalter and his family. Buckhalter, who founded the publisher in 1974, and Mandy Shaw will serve as consultants going forward. Kate Lyall Grant remains as publisher and the staff will relocate to Canongate’s west London offices. The deal was financed in part by…
Corporate: Pearson Sells Training/Test Prep Division to Chinese Company, and More
As planned, Pearson has sold their Global Education business — which provides English language training and test preparation for Chinese students preparing to study abroad — to privately-owned Chinese company Puxin Education. Pearson says the sale is expected to generate proceeds “in the region of $80 million.” The business has sales of £78 million and an adjusted…
Finance: BN Education Sinks, More From Bertelsmann
The stock of Barnes & Noble Education was hit hard after their fourth quarter earnings report on Wednesday morning, falling over 20 percent to a new all-time low at the end of trading on Thursday, below $8 a share — and still falling further in the first hour on Friday. (The stock was spun-off at…
Quarto Falls on Profit Warning, and China Literature Heads for IPO
Ahead of reporting results for the first half of 2017, Quarto Group warned that its earnings guidance “for 2017 and beyond has been set too high.” That’s due to both “a lower-than expected trading performance in the year to date” during “the ongoing soft retail environment” as well as an accounting adjustment from the previous year….
PRH Closes Ediciones B Purchase, Ingram Buys NBN’s UK Distribution
Penguin Random House formally completed their acquisition of Ediciones B’s imprints from Grupo Zeta (reportedly for 40 million euros), and those lines become part of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. (An investment group indicates that Ediciones B had sales of approximately 13 million euros in 2015.) Director-general of Ediciones B, B. Román de Vicente will…