[新鮮書市]美國《讀者文摘》瀕臨破產

Reader's Digest turns to Chapter 11

Reader's Digest Association, the venerable staple of doctors' waiting rooms and middle-class bedside tables, yesterday announced plans for voluntary bankruptcy as it became the latest victim of the advertising recession.

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Equity investors led by Ripplewood Holdings, who announced the $2.4bn acquisition in November 2006, will lose their entire $600m investment.

The pre-packaged Chapter 11 filing, agreed with senior lenders but contingent on agreement with other lenders, marks the latest media industry deal struck at the peak of the credit-fuelled buy-out market to head towards the bankruptcy courts.

Reader's Digest, launched by a husband and wife in 1921 from one room under a Greenwich Village speakeasy, began as a mail-order collection of condensed articles from other magazines and evolved into a direct- mail pioneer and one of the world's largest publishers.

Nine of its 94 magazines have a circulation of more than 1m in the US alone, and its titles claim a combined global readership of 130m people in 78 countries.

But advertising revenue from the flagship magazine fell 18.4 per cent last year, and is down another 7.2 per cent in the first six months of this year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

“The deal was done at the height of the frothy investment banking model, and the company was saddled with $2.2bn worth of debt,” Tom Williams, chief financial officer, said.

Group revenues are down just 2 per cent this year, said Mary Berner, chief executive. However, as cashflows came in below the Ripplewood-led buyout group's expectations, it found itself struggling to make a $27m interest payment, due yesterday.

Ms Berner said the restructuring would not affect its operations or suppliers.

美國《讀者文摘》公司(Reader's Digest Association)昨日宣佈，計劃申請自願破產，該公司成爲廣告業衰退的最新受害者之一。《讀者文摘》曾是候診室及中產階級牀頭歷史悠久的必備之選。

2006年11月，以Ripplewood Holdings爲首的股權投資者以24億美元收購了該雜誌，現在它們的全部6億美元投資將損失殆盡。

該雜誌事先準備好的破產保護申請，獲得了高級借款方的同意，但要取決於它和其它借款方的協議。這是最新一樁在融資收購高峯期達成的媒體交易走向破產的案例。

1921年，在格林威治村一家地下酒吧的房間裏，一對夫婦創辦了《讀者文摘》。一開始，它從其它雜誌收集文章，摘要後彙集成書，然後通過郵購方式發給讀者。後來該雜誌演變成直接郵寄銷售的先驅之一，併成爲世界上最大出版商之一。

單是在美國，該雜誌社旗下94種刊物中9種刊物的發行量就超過100萬份，它的各類文章吸引着全球78個國家的1.3億讀者。

但是出版商信息局(PIB)的資料顯示，《讀者文摘》的旗艦雜誌廣告收入去年下降了18.4%，今年頭6個月再度下滑7.2%。

“收購交易是在投資銀行業務的泡沫高峯期進行的，公司揹負了22億美元的債務，”《讀者文摘》首席財務官湯姆·威廉姆斯(Tom Williams)表示。

公司首席執行官瑪麗·伯納(Mary Berner)表示，集團收入今年僅下滑2%。然而，由於現金流低於以Ripplewood爲首的收購集團的預期，公司無力償還昨天到期的2700萬美元利息。

伯納表示，此次破產重組不會對其業務或供應商造成影響。