Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s corporate parent Education Media & Publishing Group has successfully refinanced more than $1 billion of their big debt load of $7.6 billion–but current shareholders face a dilution of about 45 percent as that debt is converted to equity. The financier who built this mountain of debt Barry O’Callaghan will see his own stake of 40 percent cut nearly in half and will lose his voting control. The company will save about $100 million in interest.FT The FT also reports today that HMH will forgo renewed attempts to sell its consumer book arm in the hopes of bolstering […]
Wall Street Sours on BN's Purchase of Barnes & Noble College
On Friday sentiment among traders continued to turn against Barnes & Noble’s intended purchase of Barnes & Noble College from Len Riggio with the retailer’s stock down more than 9 percent for the day. First the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column voiced a number of concerns, including limited disclosure about what kind of results the public company is purchasing: “As for earnings, B&N has provided only numbers for the year to May with no history or projections. Shareholders deserve to know whether the college chain’s earnings are declining. B&N says it will disclose more when the deal […]
The Dan Brown Media Extravaganza Begins
We’re less than a month away from the publication date of THE LOST SYMBOL and that means the onslaught of quasi-meaningful articles attempting to analyze Dan Brown as a cultural phenomenon is well under way. The Guardian wonders if the simultaneous ebook release will “spell the end of the printed word,” though evidence is limited to a few people’s speculations: “The ebook is very quickly becoming a publishing reality and The Lost Symbol will be one of the fastest-selling books of recent times,” said Joel Rickett, editorial director of Viking UK. “Once people can flip between books, look up references […]
Bookselling News: Posman Books in Chelsea Market; Sarasota Books Faces Possible Closure; and More
Posman Books will open a new branch in Chelsea Market on September 1. The store will be managed by Logan Fox, formerly owner of Micawber Books in Princeton. Sarasota News & Books may close at the end of this month after 50 years in business unless the owners can renegotiate their lease. Herald Tribune Storylines Bookstore & Cafe in Watkins Glen, NY will close on September 12 as the current owners seek a buyer for the business.Star Gazette The owner of Conkey’s, Wisconsin’s oldest bookstore, holds out hope he can find a buyer now that he has retired, but the […]
New WMA Letter Claims Publishers Won't Sell Through Google Settlement; Publishers Say Otherwise
William Morris Endeavor reiterated their advice to clients to opt out of the Google Book Settlement in a second letter sent last week after the Authors Guild responded aggressively to the agency’s correspondence and asserted it contained “several errors.” In the new letter from WME, said to be posted in its entirety, the agency underscored that “we believe that our clients benefit from their stature, the negotiating power of the Agency, as well as long established precedent in our book contracts that other authors may not share.” In other words, they want to make their own deals, and not be […]
People
Christie Henry has been promoted to Editorial Director for the Sciences at the University of Chicago Press. She had been Executive Editor. Jessica Olivo has been promoted to Foreign Rights Agent at Trident Media Group.