On Tuesday, Indigo announced results for the fourth quarter ended April 3, 2021, with sales of CA$199 million, up from $178.1 million last year. The net loss for the quarter was $(39.5) million, compared to a big loss of $(171.3) million last year, when they took significant impairment charges. For the full 53-week year, sales were $905 million — “normalized” at $889 million over 52 weeks — down by 5.5 percent overall (and 7.1 percent on a normalized basis) from $958 million last year, in a year disrupted by COVID-related store closures. Two years ago, sales had reached $1.047 billion. […]
Booksellers
WH Smith High Street Sales Down 14 Percent, As Company Warns of a Potential Cash Crunch
WH Smith announced six month results for the period ended February 28, with High Street sales of £270 million, down 14 percent over the prior year, and profit of £33 million, compared to profit of £47 million last year. By the quarter, High Street sales were 88 percent of 2019 sales in Q1, 84 percent in Q2, and 87 percent in Q3 to date. The company called out High Street’s resilience and said the business was “well placed to continue to generate cash from its portfolio of well-located stores and growing internet businesses.” Reduced rents at lease renewal played an […]
Storytel Meets Its Growth Goals for 2020, Sets Aggressive New Targets
Swedish audiobook subscription service Storytel published its 2020 annual report, with total sales of SEK 2.39 billion ($268 million), up from SEK 1.84 billion, exceeding its goal for the year despite a strong Swedish krona. The company’s pretax loss was SEK (210) million, an improvement from SEK (380) million last year, though the company remains focused on growth over profit. “Storytel’s strong expansion focus, which prioritizes growth over profitability, will remain in place as long as customer acquisition creates value and contributes to making more markets profitable at a local level.” (One more market reached profitability in 2020, in the […]
Barnes & Noble Education’s Struggle Continues; WH Smith Improves Its Burn Rate
Barnes & Noble Education reported earnings for the third fiscal quarter ended January 30, with sales of $412 million, compared to $503 million last year, a decline of 19 percent. While sales were better than analysts’ expectations, earnings were worse, with net loss of $(48) million, down from $(2) million last year. The loss included pre-tax impairment of $27.6 million, “on certain store-level long-lived assets in the retail segment.” Retail sales decreased by $70.3 million in the quarter, or 15.4 percent. Comparable store sales were down 20 percent overall, with the biggest decline in trade books, down 61 percent. Textbook […]
Indigo’s Holiday Quarter Challenged by Store Closures
On Friday, Indigo announced results for the third quarter ended December 26, 2020, with sales of CA$365 million, a decrease of $18 million or 5 percent. The company said the quarter started off showing real growth, but “revenues were challenged by a significant wave of mandated COVID-19 store closures in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec during the second part of November and December, a critical period of sales.” Print sales for the quarter were $192 million, down $2 million. They represented 52.6 percent of sales, compared to 50.6 percent last year. E-commerce, a small portion of sales, grew 92 percent in […]
Corporate: Wiley’s Earnings Gain and Guidance is Reinstated, Barnes & Noble Education Still Suffering
Wiley reported second quarter sales for the period ended October 31, with sales of $491 million, compared to $466.2 million last year’s period, an increase of 5 percent. Excluding acquisitions and currency impact, however, revenue was flat. Adjusted EBITDA was $120.3 million, increased from $110 million, or 7 percent. Significantly, the company reinstated guidance for fiscal year 2021 (after suspending it due to the pandemic), now forecasting low-single digit growth overall for the year, with a mid-single digit decline in Academic & Professional Learning. The return of guidance and expectations of growth along with outperforming analysts for the quarter led […]