MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
February 8 – February 15, 2007 Edition
Update
NBN, Perseus
Vie for PGW,
B&T Eyes AMS
2/7/2007In the on-going battle for assets of bankrupt American Marketing Services (AMS) and its distribution arm, PGW, two new players have surfaced in the last few days.
National Book Network (NBN) has offered publishers who are clients of insolvent PGW 85 cents on the dollar for their inventory, now up for grabs in the bankruptcy court fray, thus trumping an earlier offer by Perseus Books Group to pay publishers 70 cents on the dollar to turn over their contracts to Perseus. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court is set on Monday to hand over PGW to Perseus, if it succeeds in getting 65% of publishers to go along with the hand-over and provided there are no other objections. Until now, the Perseus offer was the only one on the table.
According to rumors, a letter from NBN head Jed Lyons offers publishers the support of a major financial institution, Drawbridge Long, if they will assign their distribution contracts to NBN and extend their contract terms by three years beyond their next anniversary date. The letter also says that NBN would maintain a California office and would integrate some of the PGW staff.
In other developments February 6, Baker & Taylor is rumored to have made an offer for AMS, but sources say it wont be the only offer. Levy Entertainment is also moving to acquire AMS assets and has opened an office in California, as previously reported.
No documents had yet been filed by press time with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
