1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. Board Increases Stock Repurchase Program to $40 Million

Times Media Group has continued on its acquisition track, taking over Acorn Newspapers, a publisher of five brands serving more than 340,000 readers in Western Los Angeles and Eastern Ventura Counties. Terms were not disclosed. Included in the purchase are the weeklies The Acorn serving Agoura Hills, Moorpark Acorn, Simi Valley Acorn, Camarillo Acorn and Thousand Oaks Acorn, along with companion publications and websites. Last month, Times Media Group acquired Picket Fence Media, publisher of San Clemente Times and other Southern California titles. The company has more than 40 publications in Arizona and Southern California.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc announces that it has completed the purchase of the members’ interests of ABC-CLIO LLC. The consideration is $22.9 million (£17.3 million), of which $22.3 million (£16.8 million) has been satisfied in cash on completion and up to $0.6 million (£0.5 million) will be satisfied in cash post completion. ABC-CLIO is an established academic publisher of reference, nonfiction, online curriculum and professional development materials in both print and digital formats for schools, academic libraries and public libraries, primarily in the USA. Founded in 1955, ABC-CLIO is based in Santa Barbara, California. ABC-CLIO has four imprints and 32 databases that provide curriculum-aligned content and lesson plans, professional development support and student activities to US schools and academic institutions. It has more than 23,000 titles in its portfolio.

The Postal Service’s proposal appears to target mail that consistently fails to meet service performance goals and has the most opportunity for improvement. However, the Commission is concerned that the Postal Service did not conduct any operational or pilot testing of its proposed service standard changes. The Commission finds this lack of testing problematic as mail processing is complex and requires timely execution to provide reliable service performance. In addition, the Commission notes that the Postal Service’s estimated annual cost savings for the proposed service standard changes do not indicate much improvement, if any, to the Postal Service’s current financial condition. Rather, the estimated cost savings from extending the service standard would be eliminated by additional costs associated with the growth in packages. Therefore, it is not clear that the tradeoff between financial viability and maintaining high-quality service standards is reasonable. Likewise, the Postal Service concludes that any reduction in First-Class Mail and Periodical volume due to its proposal will be modest, but that conclusion is premised upon analysis of customer satisfaction and demand that relies on numerous unproven assumptions. The Commission encourages the Postal Service to consider the full recommendations outlined in its advisory opinion prior to implementing its plan. The Postal Service should: *Regularly update and publicly communicate realistic targets throughout its implementation *Ensure cost savings are realized but balanced with and not prioritized over maintaining high-quality service standards *Closely monitor the implementation of its plan to determine whether the new potential surface transportation network actually increases efficiency and capacity utilization *Monitor more closely customer satisfaction going forward, particularly for customer and mailer segments that the change may most impact *Be more transparent in the feedback it receives from stakeholders and keep its plan flexible to the needs of customers, stakeholders, and the general public *Not rely upon its filed econometric analysis to estimate the impact of the proposed service changes on volume