Harlequin’s parent company Torstar reported first quarter results Wednesday. The book publishing unit had sales of $106.6 million (CA), down by $9.4 million, excluding the impact of foreign exchange (which added another $700,000 in earnings.) EBITDA was down $1.5 million in the quarter at $21.4 million, which Torstar attributed to “lower revenues as we continue to adjust in the print and digital book publishing markets to the shift to digital reading.” As in the past, the sales drop was attributed to “declines in print revenues [that] more than [offset] digital revenue growth.” Global digital revenues, up $2.9 million compared to […]
Earnings Reports
Sales Rise S&S, As Profit Reflects Legal Costs
CBS reported first quarter earnings after the close of the market on Tuesday, with Simon & Schuster recording strong results: sales rose 14 percent, up $21 million to $176 million. It’s a quarter with traditionally thin margins, but OIBDA rose as well, up $3 million to $10 million, with operating income of $8 million, as gains in content sales were “partially offset by higher costs related to legal matters”–which presumably means the settlement discussions with the Department of Justice and state attorneys general. Since those settlements have not been finalized, there is no larger charge against earnings declared yet for the […]
Corporate: Scholastic Expect More Earnings Thanks to Hunger Games Sales; Secound Round Bids for Flammarion
Scholastic significantly increased its earnings guidance for fiscal 2012, which ends on May 31, to exceed $3.40 a share, “based on stronger than anticipated sales of The Hunger Games trilogy following the March 23 movie release.” Previously, the company projected annual earnings of between $2.60 to $2.90 per diluted share, while the company’s prior guidance for revenue and free cash flow remains unchanged. The sale process for French publisher Flammarion by its Italian owner RCS Media continues, with a number of reports indicating that five publishers have submitted second-round bids starting at 300 million euros. France’s Actes Sud and Albin […]
First Quarter Sales Rise Modestly at Penguin; Promises “Robust Defense” Against DOJ
Pearson issued a brief first quarter trading update, in advance of their annual meeting. Sales rose 3 percent overall in the period, at £1.16 billion, up 11 percent on a constant-exchange-rate basis. The company expects profits in the first half of this fiscal year to be lower than a year, with income “heavily weighted to the second half” and comparisons that include the previous sale of their stake in FTSE International. They expect Penguin to “perform in line with its industry this year” (which usually means low growth). The unit “will benefit from its consistently strong publishing schedule, which is […]
Amazon’s Margin of Under 1 Percent Beats Estimates, and Stock Rises
Amazon continues to grow sales and produce very little income, reporting revenues of $13.18 billion for their first quarter (up 34 percent) and net income of $130 million (down 35 percent). North American media sales of $2.197 billion were up 17 percent, and international media sales of $2.513 billion rose 21 percent. The press release leads by trumpeting having persuaded authors of 130,000 KDP titles to make their works exclusive to Amazon so that Prime members can borrow them for free. In the investor q&a Thursday night, cfo Thomas Szkutak reiterated of the recent DOJ action that “we do think […]
McGraw-Hill Says They Are On Track To Spin Off Education Unit By Year’s End
McGraw-Hill reported first quarter earnings Tuesday morning, with some small updates on the company’s plan to spin off the education unit and save approximately $100 million in costs by the end of the year. The IRS is reported to have agreed to tax-free status for the spinoff, and McGraw-Hill will officially file certain details of the plan “in the coming weeks.” Adjusted net income from continuing operations–the measure the company would like Wall Street to focus on (which excludes one-time charges of about $33 million relating to the spinoff)–was $144 million, up 19 percent and ahead of estimates. Sales rose […]