Finance

A full announcement is due shortly, but an Ashland, OH newspaper has reported that Baker & Taylor is intensifying their competition with rival Ingram by merging with the family-owned Bookmasters. Private equity firm Castle Harlan, which owns Baker & Taylor, has made the purchase and will merge B&T with Bookmasters. The paper says Bookmasters’ 200 employees were told of the news in a company meeting last week. The acquisition provides Baker & Taylor with some of the same printing and publisher-distribution services that Ingram has aggressively added to in recent years, along with ebook distribution services and other “integrated publishing […]

As expected, Cengage Learning and all of its US subsidiaries have voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, to “significantly reduce” their gigantic debt load of $5.8 billion. The deal with their first lien holders will restructure the company’s obligations to eliminate “more than $4 billion in debt.” New financing is not required for now, however. The company says it “maintains substantial cash balances and expects to generate positive cash flow, and therefore does not need nor intend to obtain debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing.” CEO Michael Hansen says exactly what executives say in this situation: “A more appropriately-sized capital structure, along […]

The merger of Penguin and Random House (except for Random House Germany) into a single company first announced October 29, 2012 has now officially been completed. Headquartered in New York, the new company employs over 10,000 people, and publishes over 15,000 new titles annually across 250 imprints. For 2012, Penguin Random House would have had pro forma sales of 3.2 billion euros (or about $4.16 billion), and operating profit of 427 million euros. (Bertelsmann’s version of the release says the company “will generate annual revenues of approximately €3 billion ($3.9 billion).” A new starting logo combines the colophons of the two […]

Hyperion’s adult trade list of over 1,000 titles, plus 25 new titles under contract but not yet published, are being sold to Hachette Book Group — which was always the most likely purchaser, since they took over distribution for Hyperion and Disney Publishing under long-term contract earlier this year. While a WSJ article from March on the sale gave a vague impression of what Disney intended to sell, those familiar with the offering book have said all along the intention was to sell all of Hyperion’s adult books with the exception of a small number of Disney-related titles. Those “franchise” […]

Cengage’s long slow, reckoning with a bankruptcy filing — the only way the company can deal with its mountain of more than $5 billion in debt — is nearing its culmination. As previously reported, a payment of $225 million due July 5 remains the trigger point. The WSJ essentially confirms the obvious: Cengage “is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection in the coming days, said several people familiar with the plans…currently negotiating a prearranged bankruptcy restructuring with senior creditors.” But the actual filing could come “a couple of days after July 5 depending on how the negotiations progress, some of […]