S&P Global announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Engineering Solutions business to investment funds managed by KKR, a leading global investment firm and a longstanding customer of S&P Global, for $975 million in cash, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. S&P Global currently anticipates the divestiture to result in after-tax proceeds of approximately $750 million, which proceeds are expected to be used to fund share repurchases. The agreement follows S&P Global's announced intent in November 2022 to divest the business.

Gannett Co., Inc. announced that it has refinanced approximately $500 million of its 11.5% term loan, maturing in 2024, with 6.0% convertible notes due in 2027. The refinancing reduces the outstanding term loan to $1.118 billion. “We are pleased to announce the refinancing, which we believe has three key benefits,” said Michael Reed, Gannett Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “First, it generates significant savings, reducing our annual interest expense by approximately $28 million per year. These savings will be used to accelerate repayment of our term loan. Second, we believe that this refinancing paves the way for a refinancing of the remaining term loan by reducing the outstanding balance. And third, it extends the maturity of approximately $500 million of debt by three years. Since putting the term loan in place in November 2019, we have repaid over $175 million to date, and we expect to repay an additional $100 million in the coming months. Pro forma for these repayments, the outstanding term loan will be approximately $1 billion, which we believe we can refinance on attractive terms by the end of the first half of 2021. As we improve the Company’s capital structure, we are also seeing continued improvement in our revenue trends, which we expect will drive strong fourth quarter results.”

Total revenues across all categories for the first quarter of the year were up 0.2% as compared to the first three months of 2023, coming in at $3 billion. Trade (Consumer Books) sales were down 2.8% during the first three months of the year, coming in at $2.1 billion. In terms of physical paper format revenues during the first quarter, in the Trade (Consumer Books) category, Hardback revenues were down 4.9%, coming in at $733.2 million; Paperbacks were down 3.4%, with $756.1 million in revenue; Mass Market was down 25.7% to $31.0 million; and Special Bindings were down 7.8%, with $48.5 million in revenue. eBook revenues were down 1.5% as compared to the first three months of 2023, for a total of $255.6 million. Digital Audio was up 15.3% for the first three months, coming in at $243.6 million in revenue. Physical Audio was down 29.1% coming in at $2.1 million.