PW Daily reported yesterday that Perseus completed its acquisition of the distribution contracts of 124 former Publishers Group West clients yesterday and began writing checks to those publishers. Publishers will receive payment either by wire transfer or mail, whichever they prefer, CEO David Steinberger said. With the closing, Perseus began shipping books from the AMS/PGW Indianapolis warehouse yesterday, shipping 70,000 units to accounts to fill orders under the transition services agreement that will last through July 31. “My goal is to be able to lay out a more concrete plan for our entire organization within 60 days,” Steinberger said.
But here’s where the fun part starts: although Perseus will have a PGW booth at BEA and a PGW catalogue, the company does not now own the PGW name, which is still being used by AMS. But since “Transition Vendor” probably won’t go over well with the BEA-niks, and there are still summer titles to be hawked, PGW it is – unless AMS raises a stink about the name, which seems unlikely.
Meanwhile, Radio Free PGW reports on why the revised offer for non-consenting publishers is still not necessarily in their best interests and how they could file for damages. “This little problem with damages is the main reason why the Judge awarded the deal to [Perseus], because the PGW estate would have had greater exposure to damage claims if NBN had won. AMS knows this all too well, since their investment brokers were the ones whose testimony may have sunk the NBN offer.”