Hachette Book Group USA ceo Michael Pietsch welcomed staff back to work with a summary memo, celebrating “another strong year in 2018” in which “our budget for revenue and profit and surpassed 2017’s results.” He notes that “our publishing divisions all contributed to our positive financial results.” It was also a year, as previously reported, in which the company “restructured for greater efficiency.” Notably, Pietsch reiterates that “our first goal as a company continues to be growth, and we achieved this both through acquisitions and internal expansion.” As for the year ahead, he indicates that Malcolm Gladwell will have a […]
Year End
2018: The Year In Mergers, Acquisitions, and Finance
Though 2018 was not as active a year for publishing mergers, acquisitions, and finance as was 2017, it was by no means quiet — and reflects certain marketplace shifts towards consolidation and scale we’ve been paying close attention to for the last several years. Penguin Random House made with a number of modest purchases around the world, including the books division of Rodale, paperback publisher Hind Pocket Books in India, and a controlling stake in Brazil’s Companhia das Letras, while also selling off the app company Smashing Ideas, which was an early outside purchase under ceo Markus Dohle’s tenure in […]
2017: The Year in Breaking Silences, In Publishing
The “silence breakers” earned person of the year honors from Time magazine and from people around the country. As the magazine aptly wrote: “It became a hashtag, a movement, a reckoning. But it began, as great social change nearly always does, with individual acts of courage.” We should not let the year end without reviewing some of the notable revelations and effects of #metoo on book publishing. Documented accusations have been more modest than in film and television, though the story that started the movement, exposing Harvey Weinstein’s horrendous acts, had near immediate resonance in book publishing. MSNBC news personality […]
2017: The Year In Agency Mergers and Moves
Supplementing yesterday’s The Year In Mergers, Acquisitions and Finance, this year saw a number of literary agency mergers — along with some significant movement by well-known agents, and even a few marquee authors. So here is a round-up. Many of the year’s notable mergers and acquisitions among literary agencies, as well as new agency launches, happened in the UK: [Acquirer/Seller or merged properties] Curtis Brown UK > Ed Victor Ltd (Following the death of Ed Victor in June) Later in the year, Charlie Brotherstone, who had been at Ed Victor Ltd., opened his own agency, Brotherstone Creative Management. And the Raymond […]
2017: The Year In Mergers, Acquisitions and Finance
Anyone who thinks it was a quiet year for publishing mergers, acquisitions and finance doesn’t understand what happened very well. It was in fact both an active and fascinating year. First and foremost, 2017 saw one of the biggest trade publishing deals ever. We’re talking about the transaction hiding in plain sight, in which Bertelsmann acquired an additional 22 percent of Penguin Random House from Pearson, for actual cash. Remember that when Random House and Penguin merged in July 2013, it was a mammoth “deal” in that it created the world’s largest trade publishing company, but no money actually changed […]