As the educational publishing market continues to contract, two of the biggest players — McGraw-Hill Education and Cengage Learning — announced plans today for an all-stock cashless merger that would create the second largest provider of textbooks and higher education learning materials in the United States. With the deal expected to close “by early 2020,” it would create a company with $3.16 billion in annual sales — and more than $4.5 billion in long-term debt. (The leader, a shrinking Pearson, had total sales of £4.13 billion in 2018, or about $5.5 billion. Their North American sales were £2.78 billion, or […]