Barnes & Noble reported weak earnings yet again, with third quarter sales of $502.3 million, down 8.3 percent from last year’s period, and a net loss of $(1.7) million, compared to net income of $0.8 million in the prior year period. The company announced another “significant cost reduction program,” the benefits of which aren’t expected until 2021. Next quarter, the program will result in a $10 million to $15 million restructuring charge. Same-store sales fell 7.3 percent in the retail (college bookstores) division, and wholesale sales declined 14.7 percent. The company now expects full year adjusted EBITDA of between $80 […]
Booksellers
Storytel 2019 Earnings Reflect Continued Global Expansion
Audiobook streaming service Storytel reported 4th quarter and full-year 2019 results along with 2020 guidance on February 20, showing continued double-digit growth powered by aggressive investment in new markets. Net sales for Q4 2019 totaled 565 million SEK ($57.7 million), up from 436.6 million SEK ($44.6 million). Meanwhile, the company’s quarterly loss before tax was (104.4 million SEK/$10.7 million), compared to a (79.4 million SEK/$8.1 million) loss in Q4 2018. For the year, sales were 1.8 billion SEK ($183.7 million), up from 1.5 billion SEK ($153.1 million) in 2018. Loss before tax was (360.6 million SEK), compared to a (246.9 […]
Reporting Sales Decline, Indigo “Hit on All Sides” Says CEO
Indigo reported third quarter earnings, with sales of $384 million (CA), down from $426 million for the same period last year. Comparable superstore sales were down 10.1 percent, and online sales declined 12.7 percent. But net earnings rose anyway, to $25.8 million from $21.5 million last year, thanks to “focused efforts to improve margin rates across the business and lower the company’s cost infrastructure.” On the earnings call February 7, when asked when the negative trend in same-store sales growth might reverse, CEO Heather Reisman reflected candidly on a difficult year. She said the company had been “hit on all […]
Corporate: Barnes & Noble “A Big Mess”; A Big Charge At Luebbe; Booktopia Adds Funding
Barnes & Noble ceo James Daunt, speaking to inews.co.uk following the release of Waterstones’ results, declares of BN, “We had a pretty awful Christmas over here.” He adds, “But that was because there are parts that I’ve abandoned.” More broadly, he says BN is “as Waterstones was in 2011, which is: not very good bookshops, not looking very nice. It’s a big mess.” While publishers like Lagardere are investing in games, Germany’s Luebbe is taking a big charge after a misadventure there. The company said it will take an impairment loss of between 12 and 14 million euros against its […]
Earnings, and Debt, Grow at Waterstones
UK bookseller Waterstones showed improving profit on relatively flat sales in their primary sales report for the fiscal year ending April 27, 2019. The UK stores and website recorded sales of £392.8 million, compared to £385.7 million in 2018, closer to the £394.8 million in fiscal 2017. Profit was £22.7 million, up from £16.3 million in 2018. Any growth appears to have come from outside of book sales, however: The company calls it “a period absent of significant bestselling titles” and notes that “sales of non-book items continued to grow in absolute terms and as a percentage of sales,” as […]
Briefs: Waiting On Audible Captions Settlement Details, Book Culture Store Closed for Good, and More
For those watching the dates, the parties in the publishers’ lawsuit against Audible seeking to block their Captions feature had been expected to report back to the court on the execution of their settlement agreement as of Tuesday, January 21. But in the meantime, based on the previous report that an agreement had been reached, Judge Valeri Caproni went ahead and dismissed the case with prejudice. She left it up to the parties to decide if they “wish for the Court to retain jurisdiction to enforce their settlement agreement.” In that event the settlement agreement would still be submitted to […]