Informa Buys Datamonitor

According to sources, Informa approached Datamonitor several months ago about acquiring the company and discussions resulted in the sale of the company. Datamonitor CEO Mike Danson is expected to receive over £60million as his share of Datamonitor. The total purchase price is £502million which is close to the current market cap but represents over 27x next years expected income. A high multiple indeed; however it should be expected that this company will fit well with the current Informa products and that some significant economies are anticipated once the product lines are combined. From The Telegraph,

According to Informa, the purchase represents an "attractive opportunity" that fits with its strategy of supplying specialist content to a business audience. David Gilbertson, managing director of Informa, said: "Datamonitor is a model example of a company that slots neatly into the Informa group. Both companies provide business customers with data and analysis that is essential and unique - information they cannot do without."

January 2007 Google Unbound Conference

Here is a presentation from the Google Unbound panels and presentations from earlier this year.

Transcript

Pearson Buy E-College

On the back of last weeks purchase of some of the Harcourt learning assets that seemed to take many in the industry by surprise, Pearson announced today that they have agreed to acquire E-College an online education provider. (Reuters) The company's product suite fits well with the acquisition strategy laid out by Pearson early last year that has seen the acquisition of PowerSchool, Chancery Software and the Harcourt assets.

Founded in 1996, eCollege provides a range of on-demand software services including course management, virtual campuses, and assessment, reporting and retention monitoring tools. The company, which supports around 180 institutions, with student enrollments of 1.2 million in 2006, generated sales of $52 million and operating profit of $22 million last year.

Shares of the stock went up 6% on news of the deal.

Increasing Traffic and New Authors for Personanondata

The past four months have seen a rapid rise in the traffic to Personanondata for which I am very grateful to the readers who have found me and stayed with me. I have also benefitted from multiple links from a variety of blogs and websites which have raised awareness and interest. Significantly, I have also seen some links from industry leading trades such as Mediabistro/Galleycat, Publishers Lunch, Library Journal and Book Business Magazine and these links have served to endorse some of what I have published.

But it is not enough (for me), and I would like to encourage all my readers to tell people about the site and hopefully build some discussion around some of the themes I talk about. (I have exhausted my contacts and don't wish to bother them too frequently).

I am also interesting in publishing material from other people in the industry with a point of view. Over the past three months I have published articles by Andrew Grabois, John Dupuis, Michael Healy and Michael Holdsworth. All have been well read on the site and I hope they will all return at some point but I would also like to include more perspectives. Along those lines if anyone is interested in blogging about sessions at BookExpo in a few weeks please let me know.

Thanks for the support.

Weekly Update: May 13th

Deals:
Silliness Regarding B&N/Borders Combo: Forbes
Thomson Transformation: Global&Mail
Spring Deals Rekindle M/A Market: Financial Week
Murdoch and Dow Jones: NYTimes

Publishing:
How Publishing Works: NYTimes
Holt on Reviews
News Corp 3Q Results (Harpercollins): Yahoo
Perseus Reorganization: PW
Wolters Kluwer 1Q Results: Webwire
EBrary Expands Publisher List Including ABC-Clio: Businesswire
Bloomsbury and Libre Digital: OhMyNews
Publishing Books On Line: The Times

Other News;
LOL Borders News: Businessweek
Launch of Amazon Author PodCasts: Businesswire
FT Reports Content Piracy Far Lower Than Estimated: FT LawGeek
Too Many Books? Design Observer Blog
Does Chaney Own an I-Pod? M&C
McCartney Goes Digital and The Beatles to Follow: Billboard
Review of IRex Illiad e-Reader: Guardian
Reflections On The Relationship Between Libraries and Publishers: Brantley

Colbert & Rushdie Spar Over Book Reviews

Listen up nation, as some of you will remember I commented on what I thought of this pandemic of flagellation over the fate of the nations big city newspaper book review sections. Perhaps the concern ascribed to their obvious fate cuts some of us too close to the bone as we watch a print based media struggle with extinction but nevertheless the ensuing discussion about publishers not supporting the sections and perhaps readers not reading anyway continues to miss two main points.

Firstly, newspapers are simply not the best method of promoting books. It maybe they were never that great but for a long period of time they (and magazines) were the best outlet available. Word of mouth, which derives from publicity, not advertising which is message and awareness based has always been the most effective method of influencing sales. Witness the amazon 'reviews' sections and the ranks ascribed to reviews which 'helped' in confirming the book choice. In contrast, the web supports book reviewing and book promotion in ways print based newspapers and magazines can never achieve. As I commented in my original post, the ability to interlace supporting content around a central essay linking directly to sections of the book discussed, enabling direct author involvement and allowing readers, fans and critics to add content results in a valuable package or 'body of work' about the book. Here is the opportunity to make exploring reading more interesting but it is not an argument seen in any of the discussions over the past few weeks. For the most part the conversation has been one long lament.

Last December, Genevieve Tucker in The Australian newspaper anticipated some of the discussion around the reviews issue and eloquently discussed the issues and opportunities that the web offers book lovers. The following is representative of her article and is her conclusion.

Indyk may not consider his republic of letters has come to stay just yet, but many book bloggers would heartily endorse the words at the end of his 1997 essay and see them as a warning to those who would encroach upon their independence in he name of the marketplace: "It is in the conversation about literature, the recommendation and the debate, that the literary community really exists. It is here that reputations take root, and word of mouth, that mysterious and voluntary power that can sell more books than a fortune spent in advertising, has its source. To insulate authors from this realm, as has been the practice, is to guard them from the kind of challenge that is a spur to creativity. If you try to tamper with the conversation of criticism, if you restrict it in order to take all the space you can for hype, if in the end you silence it altogether, not only do you drive away readers, but you place a fatal limitation on authors as well.'

Secondly, there is a cultural snobbery that pervades best summed up in this comment by the author Richard Ford in the New York Times:

“Newspapers, by having institutional backing, have a responsible relationship not only to their publisher but to their readership,” Mr. Ford said, “in a way that some guy sitting in his basement in Terre Haute maybe doesn’t.”

Times they are a changing, and it is no longer the case that iconic media properties like the NY Times, LA Times and Atlanta Journal Constitution are the only outlets for legitimate cultural criticism. There are scores of highly regarded book reviewers with loads of web traffic producing critical analysis and support for the book industry. The publishing industry should be supporting these bloggers and website owners rather than waste time supporting a medium that hasn't adapted. Efforts by Random House and Harpercollins (others will follow) to make it easier to incorporate their content onto blog and web sites will only exaggerate the gap between the print based media reviewers and the guys (and girls) sitting in their Terre Haute basements. As they close down or reduce their expenses devoted to book reviews sections, the newspaper companies should be looking at acquiring some of these web sites and bloggers and build on the communities that these people have successfully established. That is if they are really committed to books.

I will try not to address this subject again but here is Salman Rushdie and Stephen Colbert on book reviews. I disagree entirely with Mr Rushdie:





PS: If you didn't catch the piece with Jane Fonda on the same show later that night, it is very funny.

More on Reviews:
Lynn Scanlon
Pat Holt

Thomson Agrees Sale of Learning Unit for $7.8Bill

It is hard to fathom this price. Bids and intentions were due last Wednesday and I thought I would have some time to comment on the status of the sale, but clearly the size of this offer required no deliberation. (Other than confirmation that it was what it was). Just as industry followers found it hard to explain the Riverdeep/Houghton Mifflin deal this one raises many eyebrows in the industry for the multiple paid for the business.

It was approximately 1o months ago that Richard Harrington causually mentioned to the FT that they would consider selling the Learning unit. By October the divesture was confirmed and the sale process started once the final year end numbers were finalized. Any observer of the manner in which Thomson spoke and presented its business would have seen strong indications that Learning did not feature in their plans. The detail and excitment given over to Thomson Financial during the analysts calls was indication enough. Speculation suggested that a price between $5.5 and $6.0billion would be good news for Thomson. As it turns out, Thomson management has kept one step ahead of everyone with some suggesting that the recently announced merger with Reuters has been in the works for two years and their post merger plans indicate that the merger with Reuters has indeed been long in the planning. The extra billion they are getting for Learning will really help out the Reuters deal which looks increasingly cheap.

The consortium includes Apax partners and a Canadian Pension fund name the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Service. Apax has invested in other educational properties before but not to this extent. Thomson CEO Harrington has suggested that financially the Learning business was sound - although performance did not match that of Pearson - but they were frustrated at the slow pace of migration to on-line products. This deal could be viewed as an endorsement of the Thomson Learning management and I wouldn't expect significant changes at the higher levels. If anything, management will be given a freer reign to excellerate their online and electronic product offerings.

The transition to the close of the deal is expected to take 60 days and the company is understood to have plans in place to speed this process. The company also expects to re-name/brand itself by the end of the year.

It will be very interesting to see how this sale multiple impacts the other crop of publishing assets that are for sale.

Reuters