EMPG
| Private | |
| Industry | Education |
| Founded | 2007 |
Education Media and Publishing Group, more commonly known as EMPG, is a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands with no operating subsidiaries. It also has a minority interest in an affiliate that focuses on markets outside the USA called EMPGI. In January 2009 the two big credit rating services, Moody's Investor Services and Standard & Poor's, reduced the rating of EMPG and warned that default on its debt was increasingly likely. On 10 April 2009 Moody's downgraded Houghton Mifflin Harcourt down to Caa3 from Caa1. In August 2009, EMPG announced that it had substantially reduced its debt, relaxed covenants and received incremental working capital facilities. Prior to March 2010, EMPG owned the legacy Riverdeep and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt businesses, which it acquired in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
On 22 December 2006, it was announced that Riverdeep PLC had completed its acquisition of Houghton Mifflin. The new joint enterprise would be called the Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group plc, a company based in Ireland. Riverdeep paid $1.75 billion in cash for the equity owned the private investment firms Thomas H. Lee Partners, Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group and assumed $1.61 billion in debt. Tony Lucki, a former non-executive director of Riverdeep, remained in his position as Houghton Mifflin's chief executive officer.
On 16 July 2007 Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Harcourt Education, Harcourt Trade and Greenwood-Heinemann divisions of Reed Elsevier for $4 billion. The expanded company would become Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The holding company structure of Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep plc was re-organised with a new holding company based in the Cayman Islands. This company was called Education Media and Publishing Group, EMPG for short.
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