Harlequin‘s former parent company Torstar announced third quarter results on Wednesday morning, and as previously indicated, Torstar booked a gain of approximately $225 million (CA) on the $455 million sale of Harlequin to HarperCollins, which closed on August 1. President and ceo David Holland said in a statement the company was “pleased to complete the sale of Harlequin in the third quarter and all outstanding debt was retired using a portion of the sale proceeds.” Reporting Harlequin’s results as revenue from discontinued operations, sales for the quarter up until the sale (for the month of July) were $30.2 million. Canada’s dominant bookseller […]
Earnings Reports
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At Little, Brown Children’s, Alvina Ling has been promoted to vp, editor-in-chief, overseeing the publishing program (excluding licensing). Pam Gruber moves up to senior editor; and Allison Moore is now associate editor. Jennifer McClelland-Smith will join group as marketing coordinator on November 10. She was most recently an administrative assistant temp for HBG’s international sales department. Morgan Doremus has joined Sourcebooks as publicity & marketing manager, Sourcebooks Casablanca. Previously she was marketing manager at Hachette’s Forever imprint. Veterans Maha Khalil and Rodger Weinfeld will join Skyhorse Publishing, as part of the publisher’s “strategic restructuring plan to build teams with expertise to support the overall growth and continued success […]
Pearson “On Track,” and PRH “Performed Well”
Pearson released a brief third quarter trading update (free of actual numbers, in the European style), showing sales for the first nine months up 1 percent at constant exchange rates and flat on an underlying basis, while declining on real terms because the pound was strong against the dollar earlier in the year. (Since the close of the third quarter the pound has fallen another 2 percent against the dollar.) Those results are just slightly below where they stood in the more robust half-year report. Chief executive John Fallon says in the release: “We are reiterating our guidance for this […]
Amazon Misses Wall Street’s Expectations On Bigger Loss; Shares Decline
Amazon announced third quarter sales after the close of the market on Thursday afternoon, missing analysts’ expectations on both sales and earnings and disappointing on guidance for the next quarter as well. The stock dropped sharply in after-market trading Thursday, down over 11 percent (or $35 a share), though in regular Friday morning trades the decline has been less severe — down about 7 percent or $21.50 a share. Amazon’s sales still grew by 20 percent, to $20.58 billion (though as we reported earlier in the day, analysts were looking for $20.84 billion) and the net loss of $437 million (or 95 cents […]
Bloomsbury Declines In First Half on Lower Adult Trade Sales
Bloomsbury reported weak sales and earnings for the first half of 2014, with revenues down 5 percent (or £2.6 million) to £46.6 million, and pre-tax profit down 26% (or £.6 million) to £1.7 million. The company blamed the comparison to an “exceptional” first half last year on the release of Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed, and said their sales will be “significantly second half weighted.” At the same time, however, the company tried to persuade investors to get excited about the new trilogy of Harry Potter movies due in 2016 through 2020 to balance out the current declines. All […]
Apple Celebrates Another Big Quarter
Apple reported fiscal fourth quarter results after the close of the market on Monday, with a strong launch of the new iPhones moving over 39 million units and taking company sales to $42 billion for the quarter, up 12 percent compared to a year ago. iPad sales declined 13 percent in units, at 12.3 million devices for the period, but ceo Tim Cook called that a “speed bump” in the investor conference call. Apple has now sold approximately 239 million iPads since their launch in 2010. In the category we keep a close eye on — what they call iTunes/Software/Services […]