Scholastic reported second quarter sales of $666 million, up 7 percent (or $43 million) from a year ago, “largely driven by strong sales in children’s books, especially in the company’s school-based distribution channels, and continued growth in classroom books and magazines.” All of the growth and more came from the children’s book publishing and distribution division, which rose $50.5 million to $403 million. Trade sales were up $3.1 million to $55.6 million, helped by the Minecraft series. School Book Club sales rose $32.2 million, or 33 percent, to $129.6 million. “Lower investment in Storia” helped children’s book publishing profits. The […]
Earnings Reports
Sales Drop 18 Percent at Faber In “Tough” Market for UK Indies
2013 was a rough year for many UK independents, leading to the sale of Quercus to Little Brown UK, the reorganization of Atlantic Books (with Allen and Unwin taking a majority stake) and the sale of some of Osprey Publishing’s lines, to cite a few examples. Similarly, Faber and Faber has now announced results for the fiscal year ending March 2014, with sales falling 18 percent to £16.26 million and earnings swinging from more than £2 million in the previous year (when Faber had “record results”) to a small loss of £5,000. And the company says “market conditions have continued […]
Wiley Gains, Even As Book Sales Fall
Wiley announced second quarter results Tuesday morning, with sales of $477 million up $28 million from a year ago, a 6 percent gain. Adjusted earnings per share grew more, up 8 percent, to $54 million, or 90 cents a share. Book sales declined across their major segments, however. In the professional development segment, combined print and ebook sales were down 9 percent in the quarter to $67 million; in the education segment, book sales were down 7 percent to $50 million; and in research, books and references declined 9 percent to $37 million. CEO Steve Smith says in the release, […]
BN Pays Microsoft $62.5 Million In Nook Buyback
In a series of complex SEC documents, Barnes & Noble indicated that they have paid Microsoft $62.5 million to buyback their 16.8 percent share in Nook Media LLC, along with 2.74 million shares of BN stock (valued at $62.5 million, though that stock is worth less already). That implies a “fair market value” of about $700 million for Barnes & Noble College and Nook combined. Given that it cost Barnes & Noble $431 million to purchase College from the Riggio family (the last payment for which was just made in September), you can infer that puts a value on Nook […]
Barnes & Noble Disappoints Again with Lower Earnings; Terminates Microsoft Nook Partnership
There was a suspicious spate of financial articles the last couple of days tipping the idea that the worst is over at Barnes & Noble and Nook and earnings would be up — but the results announced before the opening of the market on Thursday proved those hopeful stories wrong again. Analysts hoped earnings per share would more than double to 31 cents — but instead consolidated net earnings fell $1 million, to 12 cents a share. Analyst John Tinker at Maxim Group had convinced the WSJ Nook would only lose $14 million (they lost almost 3 times that) on […]
Sales Uptick As Losses Flatten in Books-A-Million Third Quarter
Books-A-Million said sales for the third quarter ending November 1 increased slightly from the previous year, up 1.2 percent to $101.2 million. Same-store sales inched up an equivalent amount, 1.8 percent, while their net loss of $6.9 million, or 50 cents per share was almost exactly the same amount lost in last year’s third quarter. President and ceo Terrance Finley said in the release: “We delivered solid sales performance in our retail stores as we built on the results from the prior quarter. We saw positive comparable sales in the largest categories in our core book business led by Kids […]