After Barnes & Noble Education warned earlier in the month that it risked being unable “to continue as a going concern” if it could not refinance its loans, the company has now reached an agreement and extended their lifeline. But the refinancing is still relatively short term — until the end of 2024 — and the lenders have imposed conditions that seem designed to force the company into a sale or recapitalization. BNED must appoint a Chief Restructuring Officer and they will need to add two independent directors to the board — which has stood by without doing much as […]
Partners Endorse BISG’s Campaign Against Metadata Pollution
The Book Industry Study Group has been working to combat metadata pollution, in which simple fields like “subtitle” are turned into marketing crud such as, “A Thrilling Suspense Novel from the Bestselling Author of X.” The problem resides on both sides of the Onix feed: “BISG understands that some metadata senders claim they are placing promotional copy in title and subtitle fields explicitly because some retailers do not display the data provided in fields such as ‘Promotional Headline.’ Retailers could be more transparent about how they categorize and display metadata. Without transparency, publishers have chosen ‘known-to-be-indexed’ data elements like subtitle […]
Vivendi Investigated For Allegations of Premature Involvement with Lagardere
Following media reports alleging that Vivendi violated EU rules by violating its “standstill” agreement and engaging in Lagardere’s business affairs prior to the closing of the merger, the European Commission “has decided to open a formal investigation.” They note that, “An opening of a formal investigation does not prejudge its outcome.” But, as EC antitrust head Margrethe Vestager states in the release, “At this stage, the Commission has gathered sufficient elements to open a formal investigation to determine whether Vivendi has complied with our procedures.” She notes: “Our ex-ante merger control regime, requires that companies notify transactions with an EU […]
People 7/26
KKR Selling RBmedia to H.I.G. Capital
KKR has reached a deal to sell audiobook publisher RBmedia to private equity firm H.I.G. Capital, the WSJ first reported, at an enterprise value of more than $1 billion (including the actual purchase price, plus assumed debt, which could be considerable). In March, when PE Hub said KKR was readying the sale, a “source” said the private equity firm was aiming for a sale at up to $2 billion (which would have been an aggressive 16 to 20 times EBITDA). The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. The WSJ reports that KKR had paid about $500 million […]
Lagardere Publishing Continues Slight Gains, Despite Weakness at HBG
Lagardere reported headline results for their second quarter and detailed results for the first half of the year on Tuesday. “Demonstrating its resilience amid a less buoyant publishing market,” publishing division sales for the quarter were €677 million, up €15 million from a year ago (gaining 2 percent), though recent acquisitions including Welbeck and Paperblanks provided €9 million of that increase. For the first half of the year, sales reached €1.247 billion, up €31 million, gaining 2.5 percent, or 1.6 percent on a like-for-like basis, with €21 million from acquisitions. But recurring EBIT fell by €16 million to €65 million, […]