Reader’s Digest Examines Restructuring Options

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Privately held Reader’s Digest Association Inc hired Kirkland & Ellis as legal advisors to evaluate restructuring options, including a potential bankruptcy, according an online story from Bloomberg.

The Tuesday story, which cited an unnamed person familiar with the situation, said that Kirkland & Ellis was asked to examine options such as a pre-packaged or a pre-arranged bankruptcy, for the magazine publisher.

Reader’s Digest spokesman William Adler declined to comment. Representatives for Kirkland & Ellis were not immediately available for comment.

The publisher of 50 editions of its namesake magazine around the world as well as other magazines went private in 2007 in a $2.6 billion buyout led by private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC.

Ripplewood was not immediately available for comment.

The report follows an announcement in January that Reader’s Digest was cutting about 8 percent of its 3,500 workforce in an effort to strengthen itself in a weakening economy.

Reader’s Digest, based in Pleasantville, New York, just north of New York City, published its first issue in 1922. The magazine appears in 21 languages around the world and is sold in more than 80 countries.