After last week’s excitement over the sale of Diamond to Alliance Entertainment, this week was mostly procedural matters. A hearing was held on April 2nd to finalize the sale, however, the matter has been continued to another hearing on April 7th, an announced in a PR blast from Diamond:
Diamond Comic Distributors (“Diamond” or “the Company”), today announced that it is continuing to finalize documentation for the sale of the assets of Diamond Comic Distributors, Alliance Game Distributors, Diamond Book Distributors, Diamond Select Toys & Collectibles, Collectible Grading Authority, and other related assets. The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland has scheduled a hearing for Monday, April 7, to consider Diamond’s request for the approval of the sale. All divisions of Diamond will continue to operate in the ordinary course as the process continues. Diamond’s U.K. business operations are not included in the proposed sale and continue to operate business as usual as well.
“We continue to work diligently with our legal and financial advisors to pursue the best path forward for the company and are pleased with the strong interest in Diamond’s assets throughout this process. Our priority as we confirm a buyer remains minimizing disruption to publishers, retailers, our employees, and comic and games fans everywhere. We will continue to provide updates as the process continues,” said Diamond Chief Restructuring Officer Robert Gorin.
The matter of Diamond UK is left hanging, as mentioned above; it was not included in the sale to Alliance.
• The local Baltimore newspaper, The Baltimore Business Journal, attended the March 27th hearing about the sale and has a paywalled account of some of the revelations. According to the story, the Alliance Entertainment winning bid was $72 million. There were seven qualified bidders, with the Universal/Ad Populum bid coming in at $69 million. That is indeed a good bit more than the $39 million stalking horse bid, but how much the unsecured creditors will end up getting is the biggest question. The hearing was moved to April 2 because the sales negotiations took so long.
• Image Comics, Pokemon And the Bandai Company have all filed various kinds of objections to the sale.
• The court approved the plan to pay certain Diamond employees under a Key Employee Incentive Program and Key Employee Retention Program, based on the amount of the winning bid. The details about the employees will remain sealed.
• In the ongoing game of Distribution Merry Go Round, Udon Entertainment announced they were entering into a new book market distribution agreement with Simon & Schuster, and leaving Diamond Books Distribution, effective April 1.
Retailers and readers can expect a seamless transition, with Simon & Schuster handling new releases and backlist titles for all UDON books for the book trade worldwide (where licenses permit). Retailers can place orders for new titles and backlist items through Simon & Schuster starting today. For comic book specialty retailers, aka the Direct Market, UDON Entertainment titles will also be available through Lunar Distribution, Universal Distribution, and Diamond Comics Distribution. For customers, all pre-orders through your favorite retail outlets should be filled as normal.
UDON Entertainment is renowned for its beautifully designed art books, manga, and graphic novels, featuring some of the most iconic properties in gaming, anime, and pop culture, including Street Fighter, Mega Man, Monster Hunter, Persona, Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Evangelion, The Rose of Versailles, Fate, Atelier Ryza, Manga Biographies, and many more.
• Of course many more questions remain. What about Free Comic Book Day? What about Diamond Previews? Alliance chairman Bruce Ogilvie didn’t seem overly informed about all the details of the comics industry, but Alliance is experienced at acquiring companies. As noted in Diamond’s own release, they will continue to operate as usual throughout the process. And now, tariffs…So much more to come.
English (US) · 