Simon & Schuster reported flat sales of $189 million for the second quarter — which represents a bit of forward movement, after sales had declined modestly in each of the previous three quarters. As usual, parent company CBS commented that “continued growth in digital book sales was offset by lower print book sales.” OIBDA was $21 million, “back to normal” in comparison to last year’s $9 million, which reflected some of the settlement of the ebook pricing case, and helped “as the more profitable digital book sales continued to grow.” Total digital revenues (including audio) were 29 percent for the […]
Earnings Reports
Sales Fall Again At Harlequin, As Higher Digital Royalties Bring Down Profits
Harlequin’s parent company Torstar reported second quarter results Wednesday morning. The book publishing unit had sales of $99.5 million (CA), down by $7.5 million. EBITDA was down $7.6 million in the quarter at $11.5 million, which Torstar attributed to “a combination of lower revenues, higher author royalties for digital sales and less favorable adjustments to prior year returns provisions partially offset by lower costs and savings from restructuring initiative.” The unit also took another $1 million charge — half for staff reductions as part of their ongoing restructuring, and half for “other charges.” As in the past, the 7 percent […]
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 […]
Penguin Sales Rise 16 Percent, But Unit Loses Money On Settlements and Merger
Pearson reported sales for Penguin for the last time, covering the first six months of 2013, right up to the creation of Penguin Random House. The trade publisher had a strong start, with books from Khaled Hosseini and Sylvia Day helping to power a 16 percent overall (and 6 percent underlying) growth in sales, to £513 pounds, up from £441 a year ago (which had been a weak report for Penguin). Adjusted operating profit rose £6 million, to £28 million for the period — but that was more than wiped out by £46 million in “costs relating to the formation […]
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 […]
Scholastic Finishes Fiscal Year Dominated By Hunger Games Falloff
The storyline behind Scholastic’s fiscal 2013 reports has been the adjustment back to normal as the previous year’s extraordinary THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy sales — which sold upwards of 50 million copies in fiscal 2012 — leveled off. The results were in line with or ahead of their revised guidance, even though the numbers reflect a reset for the company. They took another charge of 21 cents per share in the quarter “related to cost reduction and restructuring programs” that included $6.6 million in pretax severance payments. For the year ahead, they forecast similar results, projecting sales of approximately $1.8 billion, […]