News Corp is issuing $1 billion worth of bonds to potentially fund more acquisitions as well as other general corporate purposes, including raising working capital, the company announced Thursday.
The $1 billion figure is an increase from $750 million worth of bonds the company previously announced it would be issuing.
The mention of possible acquisitions comes not long after News Corp — which owns the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal (and that paper’s parent company Dow Jones) and HarperCollins — recently completed two significant corporate purchases.
On March 29, the company announced it was buying Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books and the Media segment of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for $349 million. The deal will give News Corp the rights to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and other J.R.R. Tolkien books as well as the George Orwell titles “1984” and “Animal Farm” along with many other titles.
On March 25, News Corp announced plans to purchase Investor’s Business Daily for $275 million from O’Neil Capital Management.
Those News Corp acquisitions are only two of several deals that have been completed, announced or rumored this year.
In early April rumors surfaced that media conglomerate Meredith may be thinking of selling its 17 local television stations. In late March, it was rumored that Axios and sports media company The Athletic were discussing a merger.
Also, news recently emerged that two new suitors — a hotel owner and a Swiss billionaire — were trying to cut in on hedge fund Alden Global Capital’s already accepted bid for Tribune Publishing, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.
Early this year, BuzzFeed completed its purchase of HuffPost and then promptly began letting staffers go in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.