College Paper, ‘The Daily Iowan’ Buys Two Community Weeklies (mediapost.com)

J. C. Penney Company, Inc. announced that it has filed a draft asset purchase agreement, which tracks the terms of the previously announced letter of intent, to sell JCPenney. All parties are working to conclude negotiations and intend to utilize the ongoing mediation process to help achieve that goal. Key terms of the draft APA are as follows: *Brookfield Asset Management, Inc (“Brookfield”) and Simon Property Group (“Simon”) will acquire substantially all of JCPenney’s retail and operating assets (“OpCo”) through a combination of cash and new term loan debt. *The formation of separate property holding companies (“PropCos”), comprising 160 of the Company’s real estate assets and all of its owned distribution centers, which will be owned by the Company’s Debtor-in-Possession and First Lien Lenders. *The OpCo and PropCos will enter into a master lease with respect to the properties and distribution centers moved into the PropCos.

Parade magazine, the supplement that has for 80 years run in newspapers nationwide, will publish its last print edition on November 6. The family oriented magazine will now appear in digital editions only. The news comes just months after The Arena Group acquired Parade’s parent, AMG/Parade, for $16.3 million. The Arena Group announced the shift to digital in an email to newspapers that carry Parade.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) today released its StatShot report for December 2020 reflecting reported revenue for all tracked categories, including Trade (Consumer Books), K-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing, and University Presses. Total revenues across all categories for December 2020 were down 8.5% as compared to December 2019, coming in at $1.1 billion. Year-to-date sales were flat, with an increase of 0.1% as compared to calendar 2019, with a total of $14.8 billion. Trade (Consumer Books) sales were up 9.5% in December, coming in at $796.1 million. For January-December 2020 Trade sales were up 9.7% as compared to the same period last year, coming in at $8.6 billion. In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of December, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were up 14.2%, coming in at $312.5 million; Paperbacks were up 2.4%, with $248.1 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 1.6% to $25.9 million; and Board Books were up 6.2%, with $16.7 million in revenue.