A letter sent yesterday afternoon to Publishers Group West clients by CEO Rich Freese updates them on various matters relating to AMS’s Chapter 11 filing. The company continues to do business with Avalon (which jumped ship to Perseus last week) and Freese also adds that “AMS and PGW are speaking with Perseus, along with a number of other companies and investors, regarding opportunities to strengthen our financial position. It is premature to discuss any of the alternatives at this time.”
With regards to returns, Freese states that “any returns physically received at our Indianapolis distribution center pre-petition (prior to our Chapter 11 filing on December 29th) have been applied to pre-petition payables to PGW publishers. Up to this point, we have not been deducting post-petition returns (after our December 29th filing) from post-petition payments to publishers. We are currently working on establishing procedures to handle charging back post-petition returns against PGW publishers’ post-petition sales.”
Meanwhile, Aaron Silverman, president of SCB Distributors, reassured his 150-strong client base that their company is still going strong. “I want to assure, and reassure, all of our publishers that SCB remains financially solid, securely-funded, well- managed and carefully-run; and, as we are family- owned, SCB is not subject to the economic machinations of public corporations,” Silverman said in SCB’s January 2007 newsletter. He also made clear the “unique benefits” of choosing SCB, such as timely checks, prompt phone call returns, and “one of publishing’s lowest return rates.”