Private equity firm Apollo Global’s long journey with McGraw Hill is coming to an end, with an agreement to sell the publisher to yet another private equity company, Platinum Equity. The deal is valued at $4.5 billion including debt. With debt at the end of 2020 of about $2.23 billion, it means the new owner…
M&A
Corporate: OverDrive to Acquire Kanopy
Building on their initiative to provide a broader catalog of digital content to libraries, OverDrive announced that it is acquiring video streaming service Kanopy from private equity investor L Squared Capital Partners. The streamer provides 2,300 academic institutions and public libraries with a catalog of over 30,000 films. Kanopy is used by millions of students…
International: UK Publishes PRH-S&S Merger Review, PRH-Waterstones Terms Dispute, Bonnier Modifies Strawberry Stake
The UK’s Competition & Markets Authority has now published the full text of their decision in not challenging Penguin Random House‘s pending acquisition of Simon & Schuster. The answer is as we indicated from the start: S&S UK, with sales of only about £40 million, is just too small to make a meaningful difference. There…
ProQuest to be Sold to Clarivate for $5.3 Billion
Publicly-traded Clarivate (the awkward modern name for what was Thompson Reuters’ IP and science division, FKA as Thompson Scientific) has an agreement to acquire library content and services company ProQuest for $5.3 billion from Cambridge Information Group and its partners. Clarivate will pay with $4 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in equity. Chairman of…
Elliott Buys Paper Source Out of Bankruptcy, to be Run by BN CEO James Daunt
Elliott Investment Management announced an agreement to acquire the assets and operations of bankrupt stationery retailer Paper Source for approximately $91.5 million, with $40 million of that in cash and the rest in loans. The investor says its purchase will allow Paper Source “to emerge from Chapter 11 with the support of a well-capitalized owner…
Korea’s Kakao Buys Out Radish and Tapas Media as Naver Closes Wattpad Acquisition
South Korean’s Kakao Entertainment is buying serialized fiction app Radish for $440 million and web comics platform Tapas Media for $510 million. The purchases expand on Kakao’s popular webtoons business, currently focused on Korea and Japan. Kakao was already a minority investor in both companies — reported to own about 13 percent of Radish after…