It seemed grim enough when Barnes & Noble’s stock fell 4.5 percent before they announced fiscal second quarter earnings after the close of the market Thursday and then dropped another 12 percent in after-hours trading when they failed to meet investors modest expectations. A tone-deaf planted piece in Friday’s NYT didn’t help, as new ceo Ronald Boire tried to pitch BN as some kind of broader “lifestyle brand” — and in the first hour of regular trading Friday morning BN shares declined over 20 percent, falling $2.50 a share to about $9.55 a share. (For perspective, right after spinning off BN College as a […]
Booksellers
Barnes & Noble Disappoints Low Expectations
Barnes & Noble reported fiscal second quarter earnings on Thursday afternoon after the close of the market, with sales through October 31 falling $42 million or 4.5 percent compared to a year ago, to $895 million. Though the charge due to the BN College spinoff was lower than expected — a $10.5 million executive severance payment, and investment banking fees of $7 million — EBITDA was negative, at a loss of $20.5 million. Worse, the net loss from continuing operations was $27.2 million or 36 cents per share, compared to a loss of $5.1 million, or 16 cents a share a year ago. […]
Quarterly Briefs: Continued Improvement For Indigo; Quarto Stays Flat
Canada’s Indigo reported second quarter results on Tuesday, with sales rising $16.7 million (CA), or 8.8 percent, to $206 million, and a reduced net loss of $1.8 million, compared to a loss of $8.5 million a year ago. As in the previous year, “revenue growth was driven by the continued double digit growth of the general merchandise business” mainly in “paper and toys,” with changes to the paper business to account for the weakness of the Canadian dollar. The company’s core book business growth also got a big boost “by the trend for adult coloring books,” while reducing costs related […]
Barnes & Noble Is Discussing SEC Settlement on New Matter; Pays Huseby A $15.7 Million Salute
Barnes & Noble’s quarterly SEC filing following the announcement of their first quarter results earlier this week contains a number of interesting revelations. The SEC investigation first disclosed in December 2013 (and first noticed by us) is nearing an end. While the agency has told BN “it does not intend to recommend any enforcement action” on the initial issues — a restatement of earnings, and an allegation from a former employee that they “improperly allocated certain information technology expenses between its Nook and retail segments” — another point of contention emerged along the way. “The SEC staff has identified an additional matter…resulting from certain historical […]
Barnes & Noble Stock Falls Nearly 28 Percent In A Day
Barnes & Noble’s stock started falling from the opening bell on Wednesday morning after the company reported bigger than expected losses (while management acted like everything was wonderful). But the selloff turned into a stampede late in the afternoon, with significant volume in final hour of trading pushing shares down $4.51 for the day, a decline of 27.7 percent, to close at $11.79 a share. The market as a whole turned negative in the afternoon as well, also trading down in the last hour, but the market movement was nothing like the bookseller’s falloff. In total, 9.45 million shares of […]
Barnes & Noble Has Soft Sales, Bigger Loss, and Sharply Falling Stock
Barnes & Noble reported fiscal 2016 first quarter sales, through August 1, on Wednesday morning. Even with the high-profile summer releases, sales at the retail bookstores declined $16 million (or 1.7 percent) to $939 million for the quarter. “Core” Nook-free sales inched up 1 percent, and same-store sales rose 1.1 percent. But don’t infer that means they sold more books. “Comparable sales in books slightly declined,” the company said in their investor conference call, with toys and games still the growth star for the company, up 17.5 percent in the quarter. In the release, the company blamed the modest decline on “store closures, […]