Cengage has a new ceo, Michael Hansen (Ron Dunn is now executive chairman), who had the unpleasant task of announcing “very disappointing” results for the quarter ending September 30 last Friday: Sales fell 22 percent to $538 million, down from $692 million a year, and operating income declined 49 percent, to $122.7 million, less than debt service for the quarter of $131 million. Among the problems cited, “a significant reduction in the level of purchases by one channel partner contributed to the decline in revenues.” Net debt stood at $5.47 billion at the end of the quarter, and all of […]
Earnings Reports
Profits Rebound at Simon & Schuster Even As Sales Decline 4.5 Percent
CBS reported strong third quarter results after the close of the market on Tuesday, but sales at their Simon & Schuster unit fell 4.5 percent, down $10 million to $210 million, as OIBDA rose $1 million to $39 million. CBS said “strong growth in digital book sales was more than offset by lower print book sales.” That digital growth was not as strong as in the past, though; digital sales increased only 20 percent compared to the same period a year ago. (In the second quarter, digital was up 44 percent compared to the prior year; in the first quarter […]
Indigo Falls on Lower Book Sales and Delayed Devices
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 […]
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 […]