It’s a big day in the story of Advanced Marketing Services‘ Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as Judge Christopher Sontchi is set to rule on various motions pertaining to AMS’s future, the competing bids for Publishers Group West by National Book Network and Perseus, and on the most important part of the proceedings: money. Or of course, he may not, if a motion to delay a decision is passed. But to say the industry is waiting on pins and needles for what the judge might decide is, shall we say, a big understatement.
Shelf Awareness has comments from both sides of the PGW bid party. David Steinberger, CEO of Perseus Books Group, said that after “an
extraordinary weekend,” the company has signed up PGW publishers
representing about 85% of PGW revenue, well above the 65% threshold
level set when it made the initial offer a month ago. He noted, too,
that Perseus had changed the offer slightly, “introducing an early exit option” that will be applicable to all publishers that have signed with Perseus regardless of when they signed. “We feel that any further delay in the process would be very unfair to the PGW
publishers and PGW staff who have suffered enough.”
But NBN President Jed Lyons told the online broadsheet that that the
distributor has contracts with more than 70 PGW publishers. “We’re very pleased considering we’ve only being doing this three days. It’s
extraordinary.” He noted that because Perseus is buying Avalon and
because Grove/Atlantic is a strong Perseus supporter, “probably a third of PGW revenues has been off limits for us.” (Speaking of Avalon, Charlie Winton, the company’s president, gets a big write-up in the LA Times as they finally get on the AMS bankruptcy bandwagon.) In addition, Lyons said he had sent PGW publishers a statement from Fortress Investment Group, whose Drawbridge Long Dated Value Advisors of New York is providing financing for the deal.
Radio Free PGW, as always, has the updates and insight, but today’s nugget comes by way of PGW publisher Vicki Lansky: “I have often found that life’s most important decisions/choices are based on incomplete information (marriage, having a family, believing in god, starting a business, figuring out the right distributor). I’m going to let the court make the best guess it can. Too many unknowns. (My guess is that neither would be perfect.) Having a distributor is better than not having one, that is all I know. I think we’re lucky that 2 companies are willing to slug this out over us. We could have no one interested in bailing PGW (and in effect, us) out. I hope however this works out, it works for you.” And that sentiment sure works for us…