Reed Elsevier, the owner of trade magazines including New Scientist and Farmers Weekly, has agreed a new $2bn (£1.4bn) credit facility as employees in its business information division consider strike action over cutbacks.
The Anglo-Dutch company today announced it had put in place a new "forward start" revolving credit facility starting in May next year and maturing in 2012.
The news comes after employees at the company's subsidiary Reed Business Information UK, which publishes titles such as Estates Gazette and New Scientist, received a postal ballot for strike action over the weekend.
Last month RBI announced that it was cutting 35 staff in the UK "guided by the long-term structural needs" of the business and necessary for it to remain competitive.
The postal ballot runs until 26 February and is over the compulsory redundancies and the merging of production jobs across unrelated titles.
These UK cuts followed reports in the US that RBI was looking to cut about 7% of its American trade magazine staff. Reports suggested this could include up to 30 staff from Variety magazine, along with staff from Multichannel News, Publishers Weekly and Broadcasting & Cable magazine.
Reed Elsevier was forced to abandon the sale of RBI just before Christmas when it could not find a buyer prepared to pay the price it wanted.
The Reed Elsevier chief executive, Sir Crispin Davis, said at the time RBI had more value than could be realised by a sale in the worsening economy. Reed added that it would now look to sell RBI "in the medium-term when conditions are more favourable".
Analysts at Citi Investment Research said the deal was "extremely encouraging news and certainly assuages many of our concerns over the refinancing hump that Reed Elsevier faces".
Sue Harris, the NUJ national organiser for publishing, said: "Our members have been forced into this ballot by a management that has simply refused to consider alternatives to compulsory cuts. We know that some people would be willing to accept voluntary redundancy, which would then open up the chance of redeployment to those facing the axe, yet the company has pushed ahead with forcing people out of the door."
She added: "If organisations like the BBC or EMAP can manage major reorganisations while avoiding compulsory redundancies, why can't RBI do the same? Management needs to come back to the negotiating table for meaningful talks about how we can protect quality journalism at its titles and ensure that RBI staff are fairly treated."
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