Sales rose 7 percent at Wiley in their fiscal third quarter, to $448 million, with operating income of $70 million, up 2 percent. The company’s previously-announced bad debt charge from Borders of $9 million was equal to 10 cents a share, and Wiley reiterated that it “does not anticipate any additional charge or bad debt expense with respect to this customer.” CEO William Pesce comments more broadly in the release: “Professional/Trade bounced back from a tough second quarter, led by business and cooking books. Sales of ebooks grew and had a positive effect on gross margin. In December, Wiley stopped […]
Earnings Reports
Profits Fall 17 Percent at Lagardere Publishing; eBook Keep Rising
In standard French fashion, Lagardere has reported profits for fiscal 2010, having already reported revenues. In the book publishing division, “a fall in profitability was expected after 2009’s spectacular results,” with recurring EBIT of 250 million euros, on sales of 2.165 million euros. Margin is down 51 million euros from a year ago, a 17 percent decline, and their net margin for the year was 11.6 percent, down from 13.2 percent in 2009 “due to a change in product mix (lower contribution from blockbusters in 2010) and investments in digital.” eBook sales continue to grow rapidly. As previously reported they […]
Marked Shift From Print to Digital Lead to Sales and Profit Drop for Harlequin
Harlequin’s parent company Torstar reported that the publishing unit had fourth quarter sales of $120 million (CA), down two percent from last year, with EBITDA falling more sharply to $18.3 million, million, down 17 percent compared to $21.3 million a year ago. They say the overall drop was largely due to a weaker US economy, which caused fewer print books to be sold, as well as a more marked shift from print to digital books. To that end, digital revenues were up $5.5 million in the fourth quarter, “reflecting the strong growth of the e-book market including the positive impact […]
Briefs: HMV Warns It May Violate Banking Covenants; Debts Owed to REDGroup Creditors; Lewis Sued for Defamation by Asset Manager; and More
As speculation mounts over whether minority stakeholder Alexander Mamut will buy Waterstone’s, the chain’s parent company HMV warned investors this morning that it expects to violate banking covenants as a result of full-year profits falling below expectations. While HMV said it was in talks with lenders to amend its credit loan agreements, which remain available, chief executive Simon Fox admitted in a statement that “trading conditions remain tough, reflecting a difficult consumer environment as well as the changing markets in which we operate.” He added that HMV “is adapting quickly to respond to these external factors, and we are confident […]
Penguin Gains, As Margin Moves to 10 Percent
Pearson delivered the strong results for 2010 that they have been predicting, as Penguin “achieved record sales and profits in a challenging and rapidly-changing industry environment.” The trade publishing division had sales of 1.053 billion pounds (up 5 percent from a year ago, and 2 percent on a constant-exchange-basis) and profits grew even more, at 106 million pounds up 26 percent from a year ago. And those margins “were struck after making additional provisions for a number of credit exposures in the book retailing sector, including in relation to Borders in the US.” eBook sales were 6 percent of Penguin’s […]
Bloomsbury USA’s eBook Sales Jump to 40 Percent
Though Bloomsbury reported results for 2010 this morning, the company’s biggest news come informally out of Bloomsbury USA, where according to executive Evan Schnittman ebook sales jumped to comprise 40 percent of net sales in January 2011, up from 15 percent in December 2010. (That’s consistent with a recent report from Sourcebooks, in which they said their January ebook sales also jumped to 35 percent of sales.) Rising ebook sales and a Booker winner on the list helped Bloomsbury USA reach its “best performance ever,” with sales of 19.1 million pounds–up just 1.6 percent–but profit of 1.3 million pounds, up […]