Osprey Group announced it has received new funding from London private equity firm Alcuin Capital Partners, providing additional expansion capital to continue Osprey’s strong growth in niche and enthusiast market segments. With the investment, Alcuin acquires a controlling interest in Osprey but the company’s existing majority shareholder Botts Capital Nominees will remain a significant minority shareholder going forward. Self-published thriller phenomenon John Locke is the latest (and eighth) author to sell more than a million Kindle ebooks. Release The British Library has signed a multi-year deal that will allow Google to scan more than 250,000 out-of-copyright works from 1700 to […]
News
Bertelsmann Folds Remaining Direct Group Business Under Corporate Investments Umbrella
With the three-year dismantling of Bertelsmann’s once globe-spanning Direct Group essentially complete, capped by the sale last month of the French-language clubs to Najafi Companies, the unit will no longer stand as its own business division as of the end of June. Bertelsmann announced Wednesday that the remaining Direct Group businesses in German-speaking countries and Eastern Europe and their 50 percent interest in Spain’s Circulo de Lectores will be folded into Berteslmann Corporate Investments (which also includes BMG and digital media and Asian investment funds), reporting to Thomas Rabe. In addition, Bertelsmann is still exploring a possible sale and other […]
People: McCullough to Start Imprint at RH Canada, Conville & Walsh Launch Speakers’ Bureau; And More
Publisher of Whitecap Books since 2001, Robert McCullough will join Random House Canada on July 11 as publisher of a new imprint. The line will focus on “the type of lifestyle and food titles for Canada and the North American marketplace that he has published” in the past. The unit will draw on all of RH Canada’s shared services. It’s designed to grow to publish 15 to 20 titles a year. McCullough will remain based in Vancouver, and reports to president Brad Martin. UK literary agents Patrick Walsh and Clare Conville of Conville & Walsh are launching a speakers’ agency […]
Briefs: Bloomsbury & PFD Partner On Digital Imprint to Republish OOP Titles
Bloomsbury and PFD have joined forces to republish more than 500 out-of-print titles digitally beginning in September. The Bloomsbury Reader, as the venture is called, will bring back books into print from political diarist Alan Clark, Booker Prize winner Bernice Rubens, and poet & critic Edith Sitwell. Bloomsbury and PFD told the Guardian they hope other literary agencies will make use of the new service as well. 57 remaining Whitcoulls stores and five Borders shops were sold to Farmers Department Store owners the Norman family by administrator Ferrier Hodgson for an undisclosed sum. Owner David Norman told BusinessDay the company […]
People, Etc.
Michael Barber has joined Pearson in the newly created position of chief executive adviser, reporting to Marjorie Scardino. Barber is currently a partner at McKinsey & Company and head of its global education practice. John Bond is leaving HarperCollins UK at the end of June by “mutual agreement.” Bond was managing director of Press Books, which will now be run by ceo Victoria Barnsley, assisted by special projects director Katie Fulford, until a replacement is found. Thomas Nelson Gift & Children’s division has announced a number of new hires. Jennifer Barrow joins as editor, Micah Walker moves up to assistant […]
Mamut Gets Waterstone’s for £53 Million, with Daunt to Run Company
The long, drawn-out process of selling Waterstone’s to minority investor Alexander Mamut is over, with his A&NN Capital Fund Management buying the bookseller for an increased price of £53 million. Parent company HMV didn’t get the £75 million it wanted (and theoretically need to help keep its lenders at bay), but the Russian billionaire paid considerably more than his reported original offer of £35 million. And Tim Waterstone, long speculated by an unimaginative UK press to be Mamut’s partner in the potential deal, will not be involved. Current managing director Dominic Myers won’t be moving with Waterstone’s, and will stay with […]