Moody’s downgraded Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s substantial debt in late December, concluding that “shortfalls in HMH’s business plan” and cutbacks in US education budgets would keep the company from bringing its debt down to their target of 9 times ebitda. The agency “estimated that HMH’s debt stood at 10.5 times ebitda at the end of September, and warned of liquidity pressures and ‘a likely default’ under its senior secured loan covenants unless these were amended,” the FT reports. Additionally, HMH’s parent company Education Media & Publishing “was named as one of the European companies at highest risk of default by Standard […]
Finance
More Cuts at McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill announced “it restructured a limited number of business operations and corporate functions in the fourth quarter of 2008 to serve its markets more efficiently in the current economic environment while positioning the company for future growth.” Included in those cuts they shed another 215 jobs in the McGraw-Hill Education division, the hardest-hit of the four areas that were restructured. Those reductions came on top of 240 positions eliminated at the Education division earlier in the year.Announcement
Borders Gets A New Chief As It Battles For Survival
New Borders ceo Ron Marshall placed phone calls yesterday to top publishers to reassure them of the company’s viability, the WSJ reports. Hachette Book Group ceo David Young says, “He said he is absolutely hell-bent on insuring that Borders is the first choice for the serious book buyer.” The WSJ adds: “Publishers and other suppliers said that Borders is currently paying its bills. But the retailer has been aggressively selling assets, slashing costs, laying off employees, and reducing debt to stave off the kind of financial crisis that could result in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing…. However successful Mr. Marshall […]
Kaplan Acquires Cleveland Clinic Press Assets
Kaplan Publishing has acquired “the majority of the assets” of the Cleveland Clinic Press, including 29 titles in the Cleveland Clinic Guides health reference line, and seven other books. The guides comprise “consumer health books written by Cleveland Clinic experts in various subject areas.” Started in 2005, the press’s staff was disbanded last spring. (Kaplan notes that it was Publishers Lunch report on trouble at the press “that led to this agreement coming into place.”) Kaplan president and publisher Maureen McMahon says in the announcement, “Last spring we began looking to expand our trade publishing program and this move allows […]
Borders and Burkle Boost Barnes & Noble
Following “ongoing challenges” at Borders and the big stake taken in Barnes & Noble stock by activist investor Ron Burkle, genius Goldman Sachs Matthew Fassler has revised his rating on BN. He upgraded the stock to neutral from sell. At midday, Barnes & Noble (BKS) was up more than 10 percent on the stock market, while Borders (BGP) was up more than 13 percent on news of new management.AP
Hachette Buys Control of Salter's Company
In the first acquisition of the year, Hachette Livre has announced the purchase of a controlling interest in Nina Salter’s Editions des Deux Terres, founded in 2002. The line publishes a dozen books a year, focused on literature translated into French (by the likes of Kiran Desai, Julia Glass and Kazuo Ishiguro) and bestselling thrillers from Patricia Cornwell, Jeffery Deaver, Ruth Rendell and others. Hachette call is “an opportunity to strengthen its position in the crucial segment of quality fiction and thrillers.”