MORE ON YESTERDAY'S STORY ON RANDOM HOUSE CEO STEPPING DOWN

THIS FROM PUBLISHERS LUNCH

Photo of Peter Olson from NYT.

While speculation on a replacement for Olson if he goes has included Random UK ceo Gail Rebuck and even (in the London Book Fair rumor circles) RH Children's head Chip Gibson, international executives we've spoken to are currently tipping ceo of Verlagsgruppe Random House in Germany (and ceo of ceo Random House for Continental Europe and Latin America) Joerg Pfuhl as the most likely candidate for the job.

Pfuhl was president of Random House, based in New York, until late 2002, when he returned to Germany.

As for Rebuck, as one international executive said to us, "If they would read the white smoke, they would see it says there are no senior women executives at Bertelsmann."

The Times suggests that Olson has "fallen victim to [a] bottom-line calculus" following a weak year at Random House and a substantial decline at Direct Group North America, though that unit was put under Olson's leadership only last September, when the division's problems were already well-known and speculation had already begun that Direct Group worldwide would be broken up and sold off in whole or in part.As RH spokesman Stuart Applebaum tells the WSJ, "It's not the Bertelsmann way to force out a key, longtime executive with a strong financial track record over one not-so-great fiscal year."

Anonymous executives in support of Olson are circulating a story to counter the leaks from Germany. "He has other interests in life besides being a career CEO," one person tells the FT. The WSJ has a source who says Olson has been contemplating a "new life plan" and "may put it into effect very soon." Our own source at Bertelsmann familiar with the personalities involved adds that "Olson has many interests and other potential opportunities that go beyond Random House. If he chooses to follow those interests, I think it would be due to his own initiative to go rather than anyone pushing him out the door." While Random House did report declines in both sales and profits for fiscal 2007, management may be more focused on the longer-term lag in the unit's results. Though margins have shown some improvement, they remain below

Bertelsmann's stated targets (note that the company switched from EBITA to EBIT a number of years ago).

The persistently weak dollar has been a problem for the company, which records results in euros, though even with such acquisitions over the past five years as Multnomah, Triumph, Ullstein/Heyne/List, DVA/Manesse/Koesel, big stakes in BBC Books and Virgin Books, the joint venture Random House Kodansha, and the establishment and buyout of what's now Random House Korea, sales have continued to lag.

Asked about the company's longer-term performance, Applebaum acknowledges it as "a fair question" and notes that "melodramatic speculation aside, every signal from Bertelsmann has been one of complete support for our publishing programs and for our investment strategy, both in terms of internal corporate development, author development, and potential growth through acquisitions."

And here is The Bookseller's take on the subject.