Qatar

In the last 24 hours, I’ve met a whole lotta new colleagues in the book publishing industry. I’ve talked with people from New Haven and New York, from Kansas City and from St. Paul. I’ve spoken with publishing people from Frankfurt and Amsterdam, from Denmark, Beirut and Qatar. 
 
Such is the international mind-melding going on at the Yale Publishing Course. Take 100 or so folks from all over the world, bring them and their questions about the future of the industry and their part in it into one lovely conference center on the campus of one prestigious university.

"What can I do to continue to learn?" This question was recently posed by an editor to her boss, the publisher of a mid-sized publishing house. The reply? He sent her to New Haven.

In New Haven, this editor joined a group of 100 or so like-minded seekers of book publishing knowledge, all gathering to attend the Yale Publishing Course. In this, the second week of this long-standing annual program which originated at Stanford (week 1 focused on magazine publishing), class members came from near (New York, of course, as well as Boston and DC) and very far: Qatar, Brazil and Denmark, to name a few.

Qatar's sovereign wealth fund may seek a supervisory board seat and strategic partnership with Lagardere, potentially deepening its ties with the French media-to-aerospace conglomerate in which it is the biggest shareholder.

Qatar Holdings said in a letter published on Tuesday by French stock market regulator AMF it may raise its stake, but would not seek to take over the company.

Lagardere is effectively insulated from takeover by a governance structure, known as a commandite. This gives broad powers to chief executive Arnaud Lagardere.