Pearson provided a trading update on the first nine months of 2018. Total revenues were flat, with a 3 percent decline in US higher education courseware offsetting growth in the rest of the company. The company attributed some of the revenue decline to delays caused by the implementation of new enterprise software in the US, which it expects to “largely reverse” in the fourth quarter. That growth elsewhere, along with revised estimates for some one-time tax benefits, helped lift shares in London today. The traditionally terse comment on trade book performance noted, “Penguin Random House is performing in line with […]
WH Smith Has Stable Profit, Still Declining Sales in High Street
UK book retailer WH Smith announced preliminary results for the year ended August 31, 2018. Overall, revenue increased 2 percent, at £1.262 million this year, with group trading profit up 3 percent, to £163 million, both driven by their travel division. Revenues from the High Street bookstores declined 3 percent, on both a like-for-like and overall basis, down to £590 million from £610 million. Book sales, however, declined further, falling 6 percent like-for-like. Stationery, meanwhile, continues to grow and now accounts for “about half” of High Street sales. (The company further noted it had successfully capitalized on the slime trend, […]
Barnes & Noble Reiterates Make or Break Pledge to Fix Their Website
Barnes & Noble held its annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday morning, to a warm crowd of 50 or so rapt listeners, with a few hecklers reliably in the mix. (One gentleman guffawed both times CFO Allen Lindstrom said the word “innovation.”) Chairman Len Riggio kicked off the day by reiterating their celebration from early September of being named America’s “most reputable retailer” in the Reputation Institute’s 2018 US Retail RepTrak Rankings, moving ahead of Amazon, which Riggio called a “monumental achievement.” Riggio’s prepared remarks echoed themes from their early September earnings conference call, and he underscored that for the first […]
EU to Allow Members to Drop E-Book Tax Rates
After two full years of debate (and years more of hand wringing), European Union member states now have the option to lower VAT tax rates on ebooks to the same rate charged for printed books — which in some countries are tax free. The measure unanimously agreed on by the EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council on October 2 is “the final step to ensure that the unequal treatment of the two products – paper versus digital – becomes a thing of the past,” said the EU Commission. The measure does not force member states to align the rates, but […]
Canongate Has Loss Following Acquisition and Advance Writedown
Edinburgh’s Canongate filed its earnings statement for the year ended December 2017, on the usual delayed UK timetable. While overall sales increased, to £9.59 million from £8.54 million in 2016, the company had an unprofitable year, logging a pre-tax loss of £440,000. The publisher had slim profits in 2016 (£128,000) and 2015 (£119,000) after a big loss in 2014 (-£1.3 million). The bump in sales is due in part to the September 2017 acquisition of Severn House , which now comprises a meaningful portion of Canongate’s overall sales. (Severn House had sales in 2016 of £3.26 million.) “We took additional […]
Scholastic Q1 Gains On Strong Trade Sales
Scholastic reported results for its fiscal 2019 first quarter ending August 31, 2018 — their lightest quarter since school is not in session — showing gains in both book publishing and distribution and education. Revenues totaled $218.4 million, up 15 percent compared to $189.2 million in the first quarter of 2018. The net loss improved slightly—$61.3 million, compared to $63.7 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA for the first fiscal quarter of 2019 was a loss of $64.5 million, compared to a loss of $78.1 million in the first quarter of 2018. Scholastic’s shares, up 6.9% so far […]