Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo reported a 5.9 percent decrease in sales of $185.6 million for the fiscal second quarter. Though the company sold their stake in Kobo, they still blame “a delay in the planned launch of the new Kobo devices” as the primary cause of the revenue drop. They claim “book sales for the quarter were down only modestly” yet the superstores sales comps were down 6.5 percent, and small-format store comps fell 2.2 percent. Their operating loss of $5.9 million was much better than a year ago–but that’s because they had a major writedown against Kobo’s goodwill last […]
Earnings Reports
Harper Reports “Solid” First Quarter and “Significant” Revenue Gain From Thomas Nelson
News Corp. reported first quarter earnings after the close of the market Tuesday. As usual, the release says almost nothing about book publishing results in particular, though at least this time they actually mention Harper by name, in relation to the acquisition of Thomas Nelson, which News Corp deemed a “benefit” to the overall company. Operating income at the newspaper-dominated publishing division fell almost in half for the second straight quarter, at $57 million, compared to $110 million a year ago. The publishing results reflected a $67 million charge related to closing News of the World (as compared to $17 […]
Results Fall Sharply At McGraw-Hill Education on K-12 Weakness
McGraw-Hill reported third quarter earnings Friday morning, delayed from earlier in the week. Sales of $1.953 billion and net income from continuing operations of $379 million both grew, driven by increases at S&P, while the company took a $99 million charge due to the upcoming separation of their education unit. (“Approximately half” of that was attributed to actual restructuring; the rest was professional fees.) But sales fell 11 percent at the education division, to $836 million, while net profit, at $268 million, dropped 15 percent. McGraw-Hill attributed at least a third of the revenue decline to “deferred revenue associated with the migration to […]
Results Decline at Quarto
In the UK, as Quarto prepares for their special shareholders meeting next week with chairman Laurence Orbach’s board seat on the line, the company issued a short trading update on their third quarter. In classic British style, they don’t report directly on the quarter itself but rather update result for the past 9 months. Add a little arithmetic and you see that sales of $54 million fell $4.2 million in the quarter, down 7 percent, and EBITDA fell to $10.5 million in “subdued trading” that saw “some improvement in September.” They say the weak spot was their “home improvement and […]
Harlequin Sales and Profits Fall Again, Blaming 50 Shades of Grey
Harlequin’s parent company Torstar reported third quarter results Wednesday. The book publishing unit had sales of $107.8 million (CA), down by $7.9 million (including $1.9 million in foreign exchange impact.) EBITDA was down $5 million in the quarter at $19.8 million, which Torstar attributed to “revenue declines in most markets and increased costs in the North American digital business.” Harlequin also incurred a $500,000 restructuring charge so far in 2012 and has laid off 8 people. As in the past, the sales drop was attributed to declines in print revenues that couldn’t be offset by digital gains, though “the shift […]
Penguin Sales Are Down Slightly for The Year
Separate from news of the planned joint venture with Bertelsmann, Pearson issued a brief update on their third quarter results on Monday morning. Companywide sales rose 5 percent in the first nine months of the year (they were up 7 percent at the halfway mark), and operating profit was down 5 percent, “reflecting the sale of FTSE in 2011, acquisition integration costs and continued weakness in UK professional training.” At Penguin, sales are down 1 percent on a currency-neutral basis, and 2 percent on an underlying basis (taking out both currency changes and portfolio changes). That’s a modest improvement from the […]