News Deserts Are Growing, Publishing Executives Say (mediapost.com)

Total revenues across all categories for July 2023 were down 10.9% as compared to July 2022, coming in at $902.6 million. Year-to-date revenues were down 0.9%, at $6.5 billion for the first seven months of the year. Trade (Consumer Books) revenues were down 5.9% in July, coming in at $599.1 million. In terms of physical paper format revenues during the month of July, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were down 1.6%, coming in at $165.8 million; Paperbacks were down 11.9%, with $232.1 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 31.3% to $10.2 million; and Special Bindings were down 3.5%, with $16.0 million in revenue.

J. C. Penney Company, Inc. announced that it has reached an agreement in principle to sell JCPenney through a court-supervised sale process. The Company plans to seek approval of a disclosure statement and, ultimately, confirmation of a plan of reorganization in parallel with the sale process. Related to the sale process, JCPenney expects to execute a “stalking horse” asset purchase agreement, which will track an executed letter of intent, outlining the following: *Brookfield Property Group and Simon Property Group intend to acquire substantially all of JCPenney’s retail and operating assets for $1.75 billion, which includes a combination of cash and new term loan debt. *The agreement contemplates the formation of a separate real estate investment trust and a property holding company, which will include 161 of the Company’s real estate assets and all of its owned distribution centers. The PropCos will be owned by the Company’s Ad Hoc Group of 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.

“I’m exceedingly proud of our FedEx team members, who are moving the world forward through the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines — the most important work in the history of FedEx,” said Frederick W. Smith, FedEx Corp. chairman and chief executive officer. “As reflected in this quarter’s results, continued execution of our strategies is producing strong earnings growth and margin improvement across our company. We expect demand for our unmatched e-commerce and international express solutions to remain very high for the foreseeable future.” Operating results increased primarily due to strong volume growth in U.S. domestic residential package and FedEx International Priority services and pricing initiatives across all transportation segments. These factors were partially offset by costs to support strong demand and expand services, variable compensation expense, higher labor rates, and one fewer operating weekday.