Publishers Lunch

Today's Meal

People, Etc.

Marisa Vigilante will join Little, Brown as senior editor on January 2, reporting to Tracy Behar for her yet-to-be-named new imprint. Previously Vigilante was senior editor at Rodale.

Follett president and ceo Ray Griffith will retire at the end of the company's fiscal year in March 2018. Patrick Connolly will take over as president and ceo on January 2. He was ceo of Universities Worldwide, a unit of Sodexo that supports the university and K-12 market.

At Ten Speed Press, Daniel Wikey has been promoted to senior marketing manager and Erin Welke has been promoted to senior publicity manager.

Adria Goetz has been promoted to literary manager at Martin Literary & Media Management.

Barnes Education Grows Profits On Still-Weak Sales

Barnes & Noble Education has performed so poorly that an uptick in profits for their fiscal second quarter -- even as college bookstore and textbook sales comps fell -- has lifted the stock. With net income for the back-to-school quarter of $48.4 million, compared to $29.3 million, the stock rose almost 25 percent in early trading on Tuesday. Even with that, shares are still down by about a third for the year, and after spending $58.5 million for Student Brands and $174 million for MBS Textbook Exchange during the year, the improved market cap is still only about $365 million.

Barnes & Noble College store sales comps were down 4.4 percent, mostly because textbook sales comps were down 5 percent. Sales of $887 million were up $116 million -- which sounds good except that the MBS and Student Brands acquisitions contributed $139.4 million in sales. All of the earnings gain and then some ($21.6 in EBITDA) also came from the acquisitions.
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