As Barnes & Noble opened the 2014 fiscal year with falling sales across all segments of the business, the biggest news is the admission that chairman Leonard Riggio’s interest in offering to buy the retail bookstores has gone nowhere and is “suspended.” You could have read the tea leaves in the decline in the bookseller’s shares over the last three trading days, with the stock dropping almost 5 percent to $16.67 on Monday. But that will be modest against Tuesday’s trading; shares were down 16 percent in the first hour (down roughly $2.75 a share). In a separate SEC filing […]
Booksellers
Briefs: More Funding for Open Road; Commonwealth Book Prize Discontinued; And More
Open Road Integrated Media announced it has received $11 million in Series C funding led by private equity group NewSpring Capital (whose technology fund NewSpring Growth Capital III supplied $8 million) with existing investors Kohlberg Ventures, Azure Capital, and Golden Seeds joining NewSpring in the financing, bringing the total amount Open Road has raised to $24 million. On Open Road’s blog ceo Jane Friedman said the new funding will be used for new technology, additional revenue streams, expand their International Publishing Partners Translation Program (which includes 8 partners to date) and further investment in “appropriate content and technology companies.” Andrea […]
Sales and Profits Decline for Indigo As Fifty Shades & Hunger Games Effect Wanes
Earlier this week Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo reported a 8.1 percent decrease in sales of C$171.5 million for the fiscal first quarter ending June 29, with a net loss of C$15 million (far greater than the $5.5 million loss for the same period a year ago.) Indigo attributed the revenue drop to “declining book and eReader sales,” as compared to the last year’s “strong sales of the Fifty Shades and Hunger Games trilogies.” They also closed 8 stores in the intervening year. Superstore sales comps were down 7.1 percent, small-format store comps fell 13.1 percent, and even online sales remained […]
Quarto Nudges Forward
Quarto Group reported results for the first half of 2013, with sales down slightly to $72.2 million (declining $1 million) and operating profit up slightly at $4 million (rising $100,000). CEO Marcus Leaver said in the release, “These results are encouraging overall but much remains to do. They show a portfolio in transition; where we have taken action, the results have begun to show, and more action is to come. Importantly we are clearly bringing down our debt levels and shall continue to do so.” Sales at their US division Quayside led the group, rising almost $2 million at $29 million. […]
Barnes & Noble Increases Historical Earnings, Pays Lynch Severance, and Postpones Nook International Rollout
Barnes & Noble filed restated historical financial statements with the SEC after concluding that they had “overstated certain accruals for the periods prior to April 27, 2013, as a result of inadequate controls over the accrual reconciliation process at its distribution centers.” The company made a few other historical restatements as well. The primary effect was to increase their reportable earnings from the past three years–so the 2012 net loss got $4 million smaller; the 2011 loss got $5 million smaller; and the 2010 earnings rose $6 million. With those corrections, the company also filed their delayed annual report with […]
Rinse and Repeat: Amazon Sales Grow 22 Percent, For A Small Net Loss
Amazon reported second quarter sales after the close of the market on Thursday. Results looked a lot like last quarter’s: Sales grew 22 percent to $15.7 billion, as operating income fell to $79 million (down 26 percent), with the company recorded a net loss of $7 million, or two cents a share. Those numbers were in line with the company’s broad range of guidance, but the silly stock analysts had somehow talked themselves into expect actual earnings of 5 cents of a share (and slightly higher sales). Similar to the first quarter, North American media sales of $2.173 billion were […]