Moody’s downgraded their ratings on Bertelsmann’s debt to Baa2, but they improved their outlook for the company from negative to stable. While Bertelsmann did not provide any guidance for the year in their recent first-quarter trading update, Moody’s forecasts that full-year sales will fall 15 percent, and that EBITDA “could decrease by around 30 percent.” Beyond that, Moody’s “expects revenues and EBITDA to progressively recover in 2021, but EBITDA will not reach 2019 levels until 2022.” The service says: “The downgrade reflects our expectation of a material contraction in the company’s revenues and profits in 2020 on the back of […]
Archives for May 2020
Simon & Schuster Gains In First Quarter, Performing Better Than Expected In Crisis
ViacomCBS reported first quarter results on Thursday morning, with publishing division Simon & Schuster recording sales of $170 million, up $6 million from a year ago, “reflecting 16 percent growth in digital sales.” Adjusted OIBDA was flat at $19 million. (A year ago, under the freestanding CBS, they reported the slightly different measure of operating income, which was $17 million.) Across the publisher’s units, ceo Carolyn Reidy notes that adult books were up 8 percent in the quarter and digital audio continued to rise considerably, as children’s publishing “was down a little,” and the international units “took the biggest hit […]
People, Etc.
Alexis Nixon has been promoted to associate director of publicity at Berkley. KF Literary Scouting has been appointed adult scout for Hoffman und Campe in Germany, and will also continue scouting children’s and YA titles for Harper Germany. Relief The extended #SaveIndieBookstores campaign raised a total of $1.24 million. Events Book Expo said it will hold an extensive line-up of panels online May 26-29, including its Adult Buzz Panel and its Adult and Children’s Book Breakfasts (which have been moved to dinner time), and a number of BookCon virtual consumer events will follow over the weekend. More information will be announced soon. Meanwhile, we […]
HMH Writes Down Education Division Value; LSC Book Printing Sales Down 21 Percent
HMH reported results for the first quarter ending March 31. At HMH Books and Media, sales were $38.3 million, compared to $40.8 million last year. The decrease was primarily due to licensing revenue from the Carmen Sandiego series on Netflix, which did not repeat in the first quarter, but is expected later in the year. Net loss for Books and Media was $2.8 million, compared to $4.5 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA showed a loss of $680,000, compared to a gain of $4.2 million last year. For HMH overall, sales were $190 million, compared to $195 million a year ago. […]
Books-A-Million Says It Reopened “The Majority” of Their Stores
With the biggest concentration of its stores in the South, Books-A-Million announced Wednesday that it “has opened the majority of its stores to customers following local guidelines for safe and secure shopping.” Ceo Terrance G. Finley says in the announcement: “We are extremely appreciative of the support we have received from our customers during these difficult times.” He added, “Now that we are able to welcome our customers back to the stores in time for Mother’s Day, our booksellers stand ready to share the rich assortment of new books and products that we have been curating over the past weeks.” […]
Frankfurt Promises to Share Their New Vision Soon
Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos spoke with Ed Nawotka in an hour-long video conversation, to discuss a broad range of plans in formation for this year’s event. The big takeaway, as indicated in a previous statement, is that Frankfurt will not keep the community in suspense about their plans for long: Boos reaffirmed that by “early June we will be prepared to announce how Frankfurt is going to look like” this year. The current vision, as expressed in the conversation, is a hybrid of virtual events and a spread out version of the live fair itself. “I think it’s […]