Penguin Random House has posted the winning bid to acquire the book publishing assets of F+W Media. Sources told PW that two companies made offers for the assets earlier this week. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware is expected to approve the bid at a sale hearing scheduled for Monday, June 10.
“We are pleased that Penguin Random House recognized the value in our esteemed portfolio of books and we wish them all the best going forward," Gregory J. Osberg, CEO of F+W Media, said in a statement.
All F+W titles will be published within Penguin Random House’s Penguin Publishing Group division, PRH confirmed. The publishing assets of F+W Books, which publishes 120 new titles annually and holds a backlist of more than 2,000 titles, include such imprints and publications as Family Tree, IMPACT, Interweave, Krause Publications, North Light Books, Popular Woodworking, The Quilting Company, and Writer’s Digest.
F+W filed for bankruptcy in March and said at the time it would sell its book division and communities group in separate actions, with the auction for the F+W Communities scheduled to take place next week. The book group had sales of about $22 million in 2018, and F+W creditors had hoped to complete the sale of the division by the end of May. However, at the urging of its creditors, the auction had been delayed several times in an effort to drum up more interest in the property.
This story has been updated with further information.
