lagardere

Profits at Lagardere, the parent of the Hachette Book Group, have been buoyed for years by Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels, but with no new books from Meyers, first-quarter earnings have taken a hit.

Media and newspaper companies have had dismal fortunes last year, and book publishing is no exception. Layoffs, mergers of imprints, declining sales, rising costs -- all put the biggest publishing houses deep in the red in the last two quarters of 2008. But the latest quarterly numbers coming in...

When confronted with a sale rumor, standard corporate operating procedure is to ignore it, whether true or false. But some rumors simply need to be knocked down, like today's report in the New York Post that Lagardère, the Paris-based parent of Hachette Fillipacchi Media, is in talks to hand...