Rather than exit the Penguin Random House joint venture entirely, Pearson agreed to sell a 22 percent stake to majority owner Bertelsmann in a deal yielding $1.034 billion, as part of a recapitalization of the trade publisher, while retaining a 25 percent holding going forward. The deal gives PRH an enterprise value of $3.55 billion, at 1.05 times annual sales of $3.387 billion (or 6.7x EBITDA). Pearson will receive $968 million “from the sale and associated dividend payments” (the sale itself yields $781 million at the enterprise value), plus another dividend of $66 million in April 2018. The original deal […]
