• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Login
  • Register

Publishers Lunch

The Publishing Industry's Daily Essential Read

  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Site Guide
  • Help

Hastings: "The Most Difficult Retail Environment We Have Ever Seen"

November 17, 2008
By Michael Cader

Hastings reported third quarter sales of $114 million, down six percent from a year ago. Leaving aside rental revenues, sales of merchandise were down 5.1 percent on a same-store sales basis. But books outperformed many of their other media categories, as “books comps increased 1 percent for the quarter, due to strong sales of new trade paperback as well as used trade paperback and used hardbacks, partially offset by lower sales of periodicals.”

The company swung from a slim profit this time last year to a net loss of $3.7 million for the quarter. (That loss includes a special $400,000 depreciation expense and an income tax expense of $700,000 related to an IRS audit.)

Hastings lowered their guidance for the fiscal year to earnings of between 50 and 55 cents a share (or about half of what they had been projecting), and cfo Dan Crow says they are “estimating our fourth quarter comp revenues to drop in the low to mid single digits which compares to our original estimate of an increase in the mid single digits.”

CEO John Marmaduke says in the release, “Beginning with September, changes in consumer spending have created the most difficult retail environment we have ever seen. In an effort to drive sales without the benefit of significant video releases, we were highly promotional during the month of October. Obviously we are concerned about the fourth quarter in light of the current economic climate.” He underscores, “we have an excellent credit facility with Bank of America in the amount of $100 million, which does not expire until August 2011 and provides us with sufficient working capital for the foreseeable future.”
Release

Filed Under: Booksellers, Earnings Reports, Free

sidebar

Primary Free Sidebar

Login


Forgot password
Quick Pass users click here to log in
Get Full Access
The publishing industry's essential daily read

Each Publishers Lunch Deluxe subscription includes full access to our searchable multi-year archive of industry news, a nightly email reporting 10 to 50 deal transactions, and our database of industry contacts, scripts, and posting privileges.

Learn More

RSS Automat

  • Jefferson, de Kretser Win Folio Prizes March 27, 2023 Prize announcement
  • Harper UK Edits Agatha Christie Novels to Remove "Offensive" Language March 27, 2023 The Guardian
  • NYU Launches Five-Day "Advanced Publishing Institute" Program for January 2024 March 25, 2023 NYU site
  • Hachette UK to Publish "Spare Us!" Parody on April 6 March 23, 2023 Publisher site
  • Netflix to Stream Series Based on Ramit Sethi's Book, "How to Get Rich" March 23, 2023 THR
  • James Patterson Signs First-Look Development Deal with Skydance Television March 22, 2023 Deadline
  • "I find it kind of stunning that the [Internet] Archive would put its entire free service at risk over such an obviously wrong stand" March 21, 2023 Dan Kennedy / Media Nation
  • Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo Is Being Adapated Into a TV Series by A24 March 21, 2023 Deadline
  • Reid Hoffman Posts a Free eBook About His Experiences with ChaptGPT-4 March 16, 2023 Free PDF
  • Siri Hustvedt Reveals that Paul Auster Is Receiving Cancer Treatment at Sloan Kettering March 14, 2023 Instagram post
© 2023 Publishers Lunch. All Rights Reserved.