Bloomsbury has made another addition to its growing academic division with the purchase of Oxford International Publishers Limited, which operates as Berg Publishers, for 1.8 million pounds in cash, 200,000 million pounds in stock, and up to 1 million pounds in deferred compensation based performance. Focused on books and journals for the academic student market in the fields of fashion, design and culture studies, Berg had sales 1.58 million pounds in 2007. Kathryn Earle will continue to run the company.Release
M&A
Credit Crunch Ends Informa Buyout Bid
After Informa rejected a reduced bid of 1.9 billion pounds (down from an original bid of 2.2 billion pounds), the consortium of private equity groups hoping to buy out the company “has decided to withdraw its proposal.” The group, led by Providence Equity Partners, reportedly had trouble raising financing for the deal. But the group “said they reserved the right to make or participate in an offer for Informa within six months subject to certain conditions.” In today’s markets, Informa shares are trading over 20 percent below that reduced offer (the group bid 450p a share; the price is now […]
How Much Will Reed Pay You to Buy Their Magazines?
Reports continue to indicate that Reed has had to put together a financing package to cover most of the purchase price of the Reed Business Information unit in order to get someone to “buy” it. (In this case, “buy” likely means agree to make a small down payment and take the big debt package Reed is offering, with the properties as collateral.) They have had to supplement a $1.26 billion package of staple financing from a coalition of banks with another $330 million in loans from their own balance sheet in vendor financing. Which probably means that, while bids were […]
More on Sundance Sale, and Releases from Harlequin, Authonomy and DailyLit
* Rowman & Littlefield was a little slow with their press release yesterday, but ceo Jed Lyons hails their acquisition of Sundance/Newbridge as “a terrific entry for us into the K-8 educational marketplace. In addition, through our book distribution business, National Book Network, we believe there are many attractive NBN juvenile trade books that can be used to enhance the existing selection of trade books that Sundance distributes through its Sundance Picks core classroom library collections.” President and CEO Paul Konowitch will remain in place, running the business from its current Northborough, Massachusetts location. * In other press releases, Harlequin […]
International News: Chinese Book Fair, and Random's South African Expansion
Consultant Rudiger Wischenbart is blogging from the Beijing Book Fair–this year actually being held 70 miles away in Tianjin. Among the currents in Chinese publishing, he sees a maturing and ambitious industry that wants to “localize” licensed international content to be more appropriate for the Chinese audience. He says the Chinese also hope to license and export more of their books to the rest of the world. Booklab A report from Technology Media & Technology China says that vice minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication Yan Xiaohong indicated at a convention forum “that the government would adopt […]
Amazon Takes Over Shelfari
Book social networking site Shelfari announced on their site that Amazon, which was an investor, is buying out the company: “As many of you may already know, Amazon has been a long supporter of Shelfari. They’ve worked closely with us as we introduced readers, like you, to our global community of book lovers…. And now Shelfari and Amazon will work hand in hand to continue to grow our dynamic community and create innovative new tools around the books you love. We’ve got some big plans ahead. With more resources and Amazon’s expertise in building a platform where people come to […]