Reader’s Digest Agrees to Be Sold in $1.6 Billion Deal

READER'S DIGEST AGREES TO BE SOLD IN $1.6 BILLION DEAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charles Duhigg]
The Reader’s Digest Association, the company responsible for publishing some of the world’s best-read magazines, agreed to a $1.6 billion takeover offer from investors led by Ripplewood Holdings. The investor group, which includes Merrill Lynch Capital and the J. Rothschild Group, will also assume $800 million in debt, bringing the total purchase to $2.4 billion. Ripplewood hopes to cut costs at Reader’s Digest and expand sales by marketing to customers who already subscribe to publications sold by Ripplewood’s other media companies. Those titles include the Time Life series, The Weekly Reader and The World Almanac. Readers Digest is the world’s largest publication by circulation, selling 18 million copies a month and collecting 2006 revenue of $2.38 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/business/media/17digest.html
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