While reporting earnings on Thursday, Vivendi disclosed that it is prepared to spin off the Editis publishing group into its own separate, publicly-traded company in order to win approval from EU and French regulators to acquire Lagardere as a whole. The company said, “To avoid any potential antitrust problems due to its combination with Lagardère Group, Vivendi will study the proposed divestment of 100% of its subsidiary Editis mainly through a distribution and stock market listing.” But quotes from company executives make it clear they are well past a study. “We knew that there would be some (competition) hurdles,” Vivendi’s […]
International News
Agent Stephanie Sinclair Named Publisher of McClelland & Stewart
Literary agent at CookeMcDermid Stephanie Sinclair will become publisher of McClelland & Stewart and Hazlitt at Penguin Random House Canada starting October 3, as Jared Bland steps down from his role to the take the new position of vp, communications and community for PRH Canada. Sinclair, who identifies as Cree, Ojibwe, and German/Jewish settler, began her agenting career at Transatlantic Literary Agency in 2012. CEO of Penguin Random House Canada Kristin Cochrane said in the announcement: “The last six years at McClelland & Stewart have been a time of remarkable creative, critical, and commercial success, and while I was surprised […]
Ingram to Launch UK Wholesale Service
Ingram Content Group UK will expand its operations — currently focused on print-on-demand and publisher distribution services — to compete as a trade wholesaler of books. SVP David Taylor tells the Bookseller: “We’re pleased to be able to confirm to the British book trade that Ingram is establishing a UK-based wholesale offer for books for any title that we can supply from our Milton Keynes operations. “We will launch the full service in September 2022. Booksellers who already use Ingram Wholesale from our US base will be able to order using our ipage or EDI ordering systems. We have already had […]
Giuntis Grow Quarto Stake
Since last August, Quarto’s controlling owner CK Lau has been steadily increasing his holdings in the company, building to control of over 50 percent of shares by April. Now, following a sharp falloff in Quarto’s stock price since its peak in late April, Lau’s other major partner the Giunti family of Italy, has added to their stake as well. According to a recent UK securities filing, Montecristo 2019, a holding company associated with Andrea Giunti Lombardo, acquired almost one million shares of Quarto stock this week. With the recent purchases, the Giunti family now has control over approximately 9.1 million […]
Booktopia’s Value Has Plunged
It took Australia’s leading online bookseller Booktopia years to pull off a public offering of shares in late 2020 — and in retrospect, it probably never should have done so. Shares have been sinking since last summer, accelerated by their surprise warning of low profits expected for the current year in early May. Since late August 2021, the company’s market cap has evaporated, going from $411 million (AU) down to about $26 million now. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a long “investigation.” While they note that, “In recent weeks, Booktopia has been laying off staff through redundancy rounds” — and […]
Five Authors Leave Fayard Following CEO Changes
Last week France’s Fayard announced the promotion of literary editor Isabelle Saporta to ceo of the house — part of Hachette Livre — following the surprise departure in March of highly-regarded longtime ceo Sophie de Closets. In response to Saporta’s promotion, and as part of the continuing reaction to the de Closets’ departure and the pending completion of Vivendi’s acquisition of as much of Lagardere as the European Commission will allow, five well-known Fayard authors announced they will no longer publish with the house. The most successful is novelist Virginie Grimaldi, who announced online, “My values and my beliefs are […]