Scholastic Finishes with Slightly Better Quarter Scholastic reported slight improvement in fourth quarter income to $40.4 million, up $2 million from a year ago, on revenue of $612 million, up almost $11 million. In the release, CEO Dick Robinson explains that results would have been even better except that they weren’t: “We achieved our goals of improving operating efficiencies in school book clubs and other core businesses, driving growth in educational technology and reducing costs across the Company. As a result of this strong performance, earnings and free cash flow would have significantly exceeded prior year results, except for the […]

Merger Ripples Pearson is getting them from both sides. If the Dow Jones sale to Rupert Murdoch goes through, they will be under tremendous pressure to do something about Financial Times — either sell it, or partner up with someone to grow dramatically and compete. And with the Riverdeep Houghton/Harcourt merger pending, assuming its passes regulatory approval, Pearson will see its position as the dominant player in the US schools publishing threatened and will certainly move to defend, invest and grow there. Marketwatch More Potter Breaches Scholastic reports that they “recently learned that some individuals have received copies of Harry […]

It’s Official: Riverdeep Buys Harcourt Education US As previewed yesterday, then confirmed on our site and now everywhere, Reed confirmed the sale of Harcourt’s US Schools Education business to Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group for $4 billion ($3.7 billion in cash and $300 million in stock, which will leave Reed with an 11.8 percent stake in the parent company). Per our speculation, the Harcourt list will apparently be incorporated into Houghton Mifflin to “create a preeminent publisher with one of the industry’s most distinguished lists of authors.” Houghton ceo (and yes, former head of Harcourt Education) Tony Lucki will lead the […]

Riverdeep Tipped as Imminent Harcourt Buyer Barry O’Callaghan, the Irish businessman with the magical touch for raising capital to fuel mammoth educational purchases (at mammoth prices) is reported by the FT as being “close to acquiring the remaining units of Harcourt Education, the US publishing division of Reed Elsevier, in a deal which could be valued at around $4 billion. People familiar with the situation said the deal could be announced on Monday.” The trade divisions would stand as a sideshow to the expected combination of Houghton and Harcourt’s educational lines. But given that many observers expected most potential Harcourt […]

Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up   FICTION Debut Tara Yellen’s AFTER HOURS AT THE ALMOST HOME, about one night, […]

Potter: Poll, Pre-Orders, and Press Poor reporters across the land are being charged by their editors to keep the Potter copy flowing. We’re going to avoid most of it, but here are a few of the more newsworthy tidbits: — Zogby conducted a poll of almost 6,000 adults and found that 30 percent have read at least one of the Potter books (38 percent of women, and 22 percent of men, to be more precise). Not suprisingly, the 18 to 24 demographic accounts for much of that adult readership, though; 48 percent of those respondents have read at least one […]