Cengage in Restructuring Deal

Cengage Learning Inc. has reached an agreement with its major financial stakeholders and creditors that will allow it to emerge from Chapter 11 within several months. The agreement, which still needs court approval, will eliminate more than $4 billion of Cengage’s approximately $5.8 billion of outstanding debt. Cengage filed for bankruptcy last July.

Harper Earnings Jumped

Higher e-book sales and a boost from the Divergent series pushed HarperCollins’s EBITDA up to $68 million for the second fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, 2013—an increase of 33% compared to the same period the year prior. Revenue increased a more modest 4%, to $391 million.

PRH Closing Two DCs

Penguin Random House will close two of its four U.S. warehouses by June 2015. PRH will close the Pittston, Pa., and Kirkwood, N.Y., facilities and consolidate fulfillment for Penguin, Random House, DK, and the company’s client publishers into the Westminster, Md., and Crawfordsville, Ind., locations.

Sony to Close E-bookstore

Sony was one of the first companies to enter the e-book market, but it has fallen far behind Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble, and will close its e-bookstore, the Reader Store, in March, allowing its American and Canadian customers to migrate their accounts to Kobo.

Kobo Gets New CEO

Michael Serbinis, founder and CEO of Kobo, has given up his CEO role and has been succeeded by Takahito Aiki. Aiki is moving to Kobo from Rakuten, the Japan-based company that bought Kobo in 2012, where he was CEO of Fusion Communications, Rakuten’s Japanese telecom company.

Changes at New Leaf

At the end of March, CEO Alim Thompson will be leaving New Leaf, which he founded in 1975, to pursue a new business in the health and wellness industry. Effective March 1, company president Irv Myers will take on the additional title of CEO. Industry veteran Steven Wallace has been named v-p for business development.

S&S SF Imprint Gets Name

Simon & Schuster has picked Saga Press as the name for its new science fiction and fantasy imprint. Saga will be headed by Justin Chanda and Chanda’s team will include executive editor Joe Monti and editor Navah Wolfe.

MacAdam/Cage Files Chapter 7

After years of financial problems, independent publishing house MacAdam/Cage filed for Chapter 7 liquidation last month in a San Francisco court.