The Quarto Group disclosed that two significant shareholders — Harwood Capital and Wellcome Trust — have sold their holdings in the company. As a result, Harwood managing partner Christopher Mills will step down from his position as a non-executive director of the company when a replacement has been appointed. Mills notes in the announcement, “In the three years since Harwood took a hands-on approach to our investment in Quarto with the support of Wellcome and others, the share price has improved by close to 50 percent. The corporate governance of the company is now in accordance with best practice, the management team of Tim Chadwick, Chairman, and Marcus […]
International News
Germany Antitrust Office Investigates Audible and iTunes Exclusive Sales Agreement
Following a complaint lodged by Germany’s Publishers and Booksellers Association in September, the country’s Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) announced on Monday that it “has initiated administrative proceedings against the Amazon subsidiary Audible.com and Apple Computer Inc,” regarding their “long-term agreement” that has Audible as the exclusive supplier of audiobooks to the iTunes Store. President of the Federal Cartel Office Andreas Mundt says in the statement: “Both companies hold a strong position in the market for digital audiobooks in Germany. We therefore see ourselves obliged to examine more closely the agreement between these two competitors. The audiobook publishers need to have sufficient alternative channels for […]
Corporate: Expanded S&S Library Option, Expanding Orbit, and More
Simon & Schuster is testing an expansion of their business proposition for library ebook lending. Announced by Overdrive on their blog, the new pilot offers an expanded two-year lending term for a roster of about 550 titles, with the second year priced at 50 percent of the one-year lending sales price. The starting selection includes at least some bestsellers and frontlist releases. Hachette Book Group’s sci-fi/fantasy imprint Orbit will increase the number of titles it publishes by 50 percent starting with the fall 2016 season, growing to about 90 titles a year. The line says it will hire additional editorial, marketing, and design staff to […]
Quarterly Briefs: Continued Improvement For Indigo; Quarto Stays Flat
Canada’s Indigo reported second quarter results on Tuesday, with sales rising $16.7 million (CA), or 8.8 percent, to $206 million, and a reduced net loss of $1.8 million, compared to a loss of $8.5 million a year ago. As in the previous year, “revenue growth was driven by the continued double digit growth of the general merchandise business” mainly in “paper and toys,” with changes to the paper business to account for the weakness of the Canadian dollar. The company’s core book business growth also got a big boost “by the trend for adult coloring books,” while reducing costs related […]
Hachette Still Eyes Strategic Acquisitions All Over
Hachette Livre ceo Arnaud Nourry was the headliner in the annual ceo interview at the Frankfurt Book Fair on Wednesday. Nourry reiterated the position of his parent company Lagardere, which has been putting their major “allocation of cash…towards other businesses” recently but remains ready for smaller investments in publishing. “As far as medium-size, fill-in acquisitions, we are and will remain very active,” Nourry made clear. On his shopping list, “In America, we would certainly be stronger in nonfiction and that’s an area where at the time we were looking at it, Perseus was a very good fit,” and the desire to […]
Amazon Crossing to Spend $10 Million On Translations
After five years of their ambitious initiative to publish literature in translation, Amazon Publishing’s Amazon Crossing announced a “$10 million commitment over the next five years to increase the number and diversity of its books in translation” (so $2 million a year.) That money “will go toward fees paid to translators,” the company said, “and increasing the countries and languages represented on the Amazon Crossing list.” The company has also opened a website “for authors, agents and publishers to suggest titles for translation.” They will consider the following categories: mystery, thriller, women’s fiction, historical fiction, literary fiction, memoir, science fiction and fantasy. Publisher […]