Articles Tagged with HMH

noosetie50% of the men did not wear neck ties at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Traditional publishers are struggling with appropriate responses to digital transformation and aping the casual style of Silicon Valley seems to be popular. Interesting fact – if you wear a suit without a tie you still look like a Book Rep.

This sartorial mis-match of rhetoric and reality summed up a lot of what I observed. Publishers are saying all the right things, but they havent quite figured out how to do them.

Educational Publishing Leaders

042_podborkaMoodys* has completely withdrawn credit ratings for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) after downgrading it to high risk just last month. This action means Moodys believes there is a high probability of default. From a practical standpoint this means that it will be harder and more expensive to service the company’s $6.7 billion in debt on $2.1 billion in revenue.

According to the Irish Times the rationale was:

“the business risk and competitive position of the company versus others within its industry; the capital structure and financial risk of the company; the projected financial and operating performance of the company over the near-to-intermediate term, and management’s track record and tolerance for risk,”

Ouch.