Booksellers

Barnes & Noble Education announced preliminary results for the fiscal year ended May 2, with expected sales between $1.710 and $1.720 billion, up about 6.2 to 6.8 percent or $100 to 110 million from 2025. Adjusted EBITDA is projected to be $75 to 77 million, up 26 to 30 percent from $59.4 million. Net income is $15 to 18 million, compared to a $(65.8 million) loss last year, attributed to growth in their First Day Complete program. (In 2025, they took a $55.2 million loss to pay down debt.) This is the first year the company has recorded net income […]

Barnes & Noble Education announced results for the third quarter ended January 31, with sales up 11.3 percent to $515.1 million due to increases in the company’s BNC First Day course material bundles and an increase in physical and virtual stores. Operating income fell 2.7 percent to $14.6 million. Net income was down 62.9 percent to $6.7 million, due to a restructuring gain and tax benefit in the comparable period. Adjusted EBITDA fell 4.6 percent to $23.6 million due to “timing differences in revenue recognition” that led to lower gross margins, plus costs of investigating previous accounting errors. Comparable store […]

Waterstones released its annual report for the fiscal year ended May 3, 2025. Sales at the UK chain were up 7 percent to £566 million. Operating profit before exceptional items grew 9 percent to £49.7 million, “through the successful implementation of margin improvement strategies particularly within the online brands, and effective cost control helping to mitigate legislative payroll increases.” The company also opened seven new stores during the year. “Waterstones sales continue to grow year on year with strong performances across geographical areas, product categories and sales channels as it benefits from the enduring popularity of both reading and physical […]

If Elliott Advisors goes ahead and files for an IPO of Barnes & Noble and Waterstones in 2026, ceo James Daunt’s cheerful talk of the growth and turnaround at BN will finally get turned into real data. While we wait, a lengthy Fortune testimonial shares this: “According to sources, the combined companies generated approximately $400 million in profits on roughly $3 billion in sales last year.” Waterstones does file reports with the UK’s Companies House, and in their last reported full fiscal year, through April 2024, the company had sales of £528 million (approximately $712 million today), and operating profit […]

Barnes & Noble Education finally filed a correct 10-K annual report with the SEC, restating prior and financial results for their fiscal year ending May 3. That filing marks the completion of their “internal investigation and related restatement work,” following the discovery of “unsupported manual journal entries that improperly reduced cost of sales.” Now the company says it “expects to file its quarterly reports for the quarters ended August 2, 2025, and November 1, 2025, in the next four to five weeks.” To a large extent the final topline results for fiscal 2025 match the company’s preliminary report from a […]

After an internal investigation delayed the announcement of their year-end results, Barnes & Noble Education gave a preliminary report of estimated sales for their fiscal year 2025, which ended May 3, and the first half of fiscal year 2026, which ended November 1. They also recalculated financial information from fiscal 2024. Shares were up sharply first thing this morning, rising more than 36 percent as the company closes this chapter of uncertainty, though even with that gain the stock is down 10 percent year-to-date. The investigation found that a payment processing employee “made unsupported manual journal entries that improperly reduced […]