Borders Has New CEO; Lower Forecast
Greg Jones takes over as president and CEO of Borders Group today, succeeding Greg Josefowicz. Jones's retail background includes roles with Saks and Target, and he served as president of worldwide licensing and retail for Warner Bros., which included responsibility for the Warner stores.
Jones will need to learn Borders business quickly, as the company also announced last week that its sales and earnings for the second quarter will not meet expectations. While nonoperating charges (including $2.7 million associated with Josefowicz's retirement) were partly to blame for the earnings shortfall, sales have also been below expectations. In particular, domestic superstore comparable-store sales are now expected to decline by mid single digits, compared to an original forecast of low single digits. International comp-store sales, originally forecast to be flat, are now projected to fall by low to mid single digits. With the weaker than expected period, Borders said earnings for the full year will be lower than expected.
B&N Checks Options
Barnes & Noble's audit committee is investigating the way the company awards stock options to executives. The probe comes after a shareholder filed a lawsuit alleging improprieties in B&N's procedure in granting options to certain current and former executives of the company as well as to certain board members. B&N said the lawsuit has "no merit," but that in the spirit of good corporate governance it was having its audit committee review its practices.
Creative Adds To Courier
Revenue in Courier Corp.'s publishing group rose 53%, to $15.2 million, in the third quarter ended June 24, helped in part by $4.4 million in sales from Creative Homeowner, which Courier bought in April. Sales rose 9% at Dover and increased 13% at REA. Sales in the manufacturing group increased 14% in the period, to $57.7 million.
For the entire company, sales rose 20% in the quarter, to $70.4 million, and net income rose 9%, to $6.1 million.
Feiwel, Macmillan Hook Up
Jean Feiwel's Feiwel & Friends imprint is teaming with Macmillan Children's Books UK to jointly acquire and copublish select titles. Both Feiwel & Friends and Macmillan Children's are part of Holtzbrinck. The first Feiwel books that will be copublished with Macmillan include a new series by Australian author Andy Griffiths and the debut novel by Lily Archer, The Poison Apples, which will come out in fall 2007. Two Macmillan titles, The Little Secret and The Black Book of Secrets, will appear on upcoming Feiwel lists.
Oakes Resigns From Avalon
John Oakes resigned last week as publisher of Thunder's Mouth Press and copublisher of Nation Books. Oakes, founder of Four Walls, Eight Windows, said he hopes to remain in publishing at a midsized press. As a result of Oakes's departure, senior v-p and publishing director of Avalon Michele Martin will serve as acting publisher of Thunder's Mouth, while taking over as copublisher, with Hamilton Fish, of Nation Books.
Silverback Buys French Imprint
The San Francisco—based Silverback Books, which publishes cookbooks and gift books targeted for a young audience, has acquired the Fitway imprint of French gift book publisher Place des Editeurs (formerly Presse Solar-Belfond), a subsidiary of Editis, based in Paris. Silverback CEO Peter Dombrowski said that in addition to adding 30 illustrated titles to its list, the acquisition will enable his company to increase the international reach of its cookbooks.
Soft Skull E-series
Soft Skull Media is launching Soft Skull Samizdat, a series of short political essays that will be distributed as PDFs from Softskull.com. They're free now, and will be available later for 99 cents.
