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Cengage Learning Inc., a textbook publisher that emerged from bankruptcy two years ago, is changing its borrowing plans to rely more on loans and less on bonds, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The company is increasing the loan component of the financing to $1.71 billion from $1.59 billion. The interest rate on the loan is being reduced to 4.25 percentage points over lending benchmarks from a previously discussed range of 4.5 percentage to 4.75 percentage points. The bond portion of the deal is being reduced to $620 million from $740 million. The eight-year notes, which may be sold today, will yield between 9.25 percent and 9.5 percent. Cengage is using proceeds of the financing to pay a $283 million dividend to its private-equity owners, according to Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings. Apax Partners, KKR & Co., Searchlight Capital and Centerbridge Partners are the company’s current majority shareholders, Cengage spokeswoman Lindsay Stanley said. Cengage is also planning to obtain a $250 million asset-based line of credit, according to a May 23 statement from the company. Cengage emerged from chapter 11 protection in 2014.

Netflix Inc. is threatening to stream two films produced by Relativity Media LLC before their debut in theaters, a move the Hollywood studio says could prove devastating as it seeks to regain its footing after emerging from bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Relativity, the upstart movie studio founded by Ryan Kavanaugh that recently exited chapter 11, says that the two films — a comedy starring Kristen Wiig called “Masterminds” and a thriller with Kate Beckinsale called “The Disappointments Room” — are key elements in its nascent comeback. A premature release of the films on Netflix’s streaming service could torpedo plans for the theatrical release, Relativity’s lawyers say, and leave the studio’s future hanging in the balance. In court papers filed over the weekend, Relativity said that the streaming giant is attempting to “extract a pound of flesh” after a bankruptcy judge rejected Netflix’s objections to the studio’s reorganization plan.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. and certain of its wholly-owned subsidiaries announced yesterday that its chapter 11 reorganization plan has gone effective and it has emerged from bankruptcy, the ABL Advisor reported yesterday. Magnum Hunter’s plan, which was confirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on April 18, de-leveraged substantially all of Magnum Hunter's $1 billion of pre-bankruptcy funded indebtedness and converted 100 percent of its post-filing debtor-in-possession financing into equity pursuant to a consensual debt-to-equity exchange.