Reader’s Digest Files for Bankruptcy as Iconic Magazine Falters

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) RDA Holding Co., publisher of the 91-year-old Reader’s Digest magazine, filed for bankruptcy to cut $465 million in debt and focus on North American operations as consumers shift from print to electronic media.

The company is the latest in a line of iconic businesses to have recently sought court protection from creditors, after Hostess Brands Inc., maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, and Eastman Kodak Co., inventor of Kodachrome and the Instamatic camera.

Reader’s Digest, founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace, went public in 1990. An investor group led by private-equity firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC bought it in 2007 for $1.6 billion and the assumption of about $800 million in debt. The company also filed for bankruptcy in August 2009, citing a drop in advertising spending and the debt load incurred in its acquisition.

The company listed assets and debt of more than $1 billion each in Chapter 11 documents filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, New York. Under a restructuring agreement supported by Wells Fargo & Co., $465 million of remaining senior notes will all convert to equity. The company expects to have about $100 million in debt when it exits Chapter 11, about an 80 percent reduction. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-18/reader-s-digest-files-bankruptcy-to-cut-465-mln-debt.html

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. Private Equity strikes again....

"The company also filed for bankruptcy in August 2009, citing a drop in advertising spending and the debt load incurred in its acquisition."

[LiberalEsto]

2. Brings to mind that line from a John Prine song

"While digesting Reader's Digest, at the back of a dirty book store
A plastic flag with gum on the back fell out on the floor...."

from "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" 1971 John Prine

a great anti-Vietnam War song

[Jackpine Radical]

3. RD=Fox News delivered by a Smilie.

[RC]

7. I used to subscribe.

I let it laps because of all the Right-wing propaganda, even in its jokes and funny stuff on the bottom of the page after each story.
It didn't used to be that way.
They hounded me for years after that to subscribe again. No way.

[pinboy3niner]

8. This is poetic justice for rejecting all my jokes 35 years ago

[Jackpine Radical]

10. You too?

I sent them some really good stuff.

Pearls before swine, I say.

[pinboy3niner]

14. And to add insult to injury, they never notified you

You had to look through every issue for about four months or so before the realization finally dawned that your masterpiece wasn't going to appear in "Humor in Uniform" after all.

The batards!

[RZM]

19. LOL. I remember (I think?) sending something in for 'Life in these United States'

Long, long ago. At least I think I did. In any case it was never used.

Bastards!

[pipi_k]

11. I never really noticed

whether any of it was overtly RW or not, but one thing that disturbed me for years was how, in just about every issue, they had some article or story or whatever about the Red Menace...aka The Soviet Union, before it became just plain old Russia.

I still have a subscription, because I do enjoy some of the jokes and witticisms at the bottom of the pages.

Although there does seem to be a slightly Conservative bent to some of the stories, but I think I'm smart enough to not let it affect my overall thinking.

Oh, and the other thing that's pissed me off...the magazine is way thinner than it used to be.

[pinboy3niner]

4. I am Joe's complete lack of surprise. nt

[senseandsensibility]

13. lol

My hubby and I both laughed at that one.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. Hah!

I'd forgotten…

I do remember, though, all those rows of pseudo-elegantly bound Condensed Books that cluttered the used books section in every Goodwill store in the land.

[KharmaTrain]

5. Condensed Version...

...people no longer read magazines in the can...they bring their IPads and Cellphones. The online world has overtaken magazines like ITunes and downloads have overtaken the record companies...

[Burma Jones]

6. Way back in 1971, my cousin was released from a Texas Prison after about 2 years

After he got out, he moved in with us. I was 10, he was 21, we shared a bedroom. He told me a lot of interesting stories.

Anyway, I asked him what you did in Jail. He told me that they gave you two things to read, Readers Digest and the Bible. He told me he read the Bible three times because there was no way in hell he'd read Reader's Digest.

He was definitely no religious person. Later, he went through drug addiction, cleaned himself up, got a B.S in Computer Science, got a good job and was killed in a car crash a month before his wedding......

[Initech]

9. Damn. What will sit on the backs of old people's toilets now?

[pipi_k]

16. Crossword puzzles maybe

I have a large stack of crossword puzzle magazines suitable for solving in the crapper.

Oh, and I also have a little book of "One Minute Mysteries You Solve With Science".

Proving that it's possible to expand one's mind while on the throne.

[tabbycat31]

12. never read it

But it's based in my hometown and that makes me kinda sad.

[raccoon]

15. This truly signals the end of the American Empire. Remember what you were doing when you heard it.nt

[pipi_k]

17. Ironically...

I was on the commode reading my latest issue of "Reader's Digest"...

On my Kindle Fire

[Brother Buzz]

20. Reader’s Digest is a bellwether for printed material

Expect to see more faltering publications follow suite. Some may enter bankruptcy, prolonging the inevitable, others will simply fold by ceasing publication.