Booksellers

Barnes & Noble followed a bad holiday sales period with a poor full report on their fiscal third quarter, reducing both sales and earnings expectations for the full year. After ceo Len Riggio said in early January, “Post-holiday traffic and sales have improved and we are optimistic for the remainder of the fiscal year,” adding, “we think we’re going to be back on track before the holidays and through the holidays,” we learn he was wrong. By the company’s account there was a little window of rebounding that has already faded: “despite sales improvements post-holiday, trends softened in late January […]

The privately-held MBS Textbook Exchange, majority owned by Len Riggio and other Riggio family members, has been sold to Barnes & Noble Education — which also used to be privately owned by the Riggio family, and where the Riggios currently hold about 16 percent of shares — for $174.2 million in cash. For the fiscal year ending August 31, 2016, MBS had sales of $500 million and EBITDA of approximately $54.7 million. BNED management expects the purchase to be accretive to earnings in fiscal 2018 and “deliver operational synergies over time.” A used textbook wholesaler, which also sells new and used […]

Canadian “book, gift and specialty toy retailer” Indigo reported results for their fiscal third quarter, ending December 31. Sales rose 4.5 percent, or $17.1 million, to $400.3 million (CA) for the quarter, driven by “lifestyle and toy categories” which, as was the case the previous quarter, was “partly offset by the declining trend for adult coloring books.” Total book sales were up 3.8 percent on a same-store basis, with a 3.1 percent increase in superstores. Small-format store comps, however, slid 0.8 percent, as the decline in adult coloring book sales hit the smaller stores more, where the “product mix is focused […]

Amazon reported fourth quarter sales after the close of the market on Wednesday, with results that surprised analysts by underperforming on sales growth versus expectations, even though they had higher income than expected. Since the stock price is driven by growth first and earnings later, shares declined from their all-time high in early trading, down about 3 percent in the first half hour on Friday. Investors were also unhappy with first quarter 2017 guidance, with lower profits expected again due to “continuation of the step-up investment that we saw in the second half of last year.” Net sales for the quarter were […]

Apple reported sales for the holiday quarter — Q1 2017 in their fiscal year — that were slightly ahead of the company’s record performance a year ago, and modestly ahead of analysts’ estimates as well. Sales were $78.4 billion, with earnings per share of $3.36. The services segment, which includes iBooks (and digital audiobooks sold through iTunes) plus a whole lot else, continued its growth at a comparable pace to recent quarters, at $7.172 billion, up 18 percent from a year ago. (The underlying percentage growth was probably higher, since last year’s results included a big one-time patent lawsuit settlement of […]