Wiley reported fourth quarter sales of $436 million, up 8 percent from a year ago, and full-year sales of $1.699 billion, up five percent. Professional/trade sales rose 18 percent in the period, at $115 million, with growth “particularly in the US.” For the full year, the segment had sales of $430 million, up 7 percent. Trade ebook sales comprised $7 million (less than 2 percent of overall trade), and the company says that it now has an “ebook agreement signed with Apple.” The company took a small $800,000 restructuring charge in the fourth quarter “related to offshoring and outsourcing certain […]
Earnings Reports
Reflecting Weak Market, WH Smith Confirms Sales Decline
WH Smith issued a brief trading update for the 14 weeks ending June 5. With the UK book market in general decline, their High Street stores declined 4 percent on a like-for-like basis compared to a year ago. Their travel stores were also down 4 percent overall, which they somehow parsed into 2 percent regular decline and 2 percent volcanic ash decline.
Kobo Costs Weigh On Indigo In Weak Finish to Good Year
The ramp-up of Kobo impaired Canadian retailer Indigo’s earnings in their fourth quarter (ending April 3), down $1.4 million (CA) to just $500,000. While the Canadian market has been more stable than the US or the UK, Indigo’s sales suffered in the final quarter as well. Working on a 13-week comparison to the same quarter a year ago, superstore sales fell 2.7 percent and smaller format stores were down 5.8 percent, while online sales declined 3.3 percent. (They reported a 14-week fourth quarter, and a 53-week fiscal year.) CEO Heather Reisman blamed “no blockbuster hit to compete with last year’s […]
Borders' Next Ideas? Lease Buyouts, Less Stealing, Still Reinventing the Supply Chain
After yet another quarter of disappointing results, Borders cfo Mark Bierley took the lead in the company’s conference call in explaining their latest strategy towards “improving profitability” (which begs the question of how you can improve something that doesn’t exist). Since “a number of stores are dilutive to our EBITDA” they “intend to aggressively pursue lease buyouts from these stores. The buyout on these leases would, based on our assumptions, positively impact our long-term bottom line.” They also have a “comprehensive audit program” that’s “designed to reduce” losses from shoplifting, particularly in “stores that have historically seen high levels of […]
Borders' Core Skill: Shrinking
Reporting results for their first quarter ending May 1, in a still grim atmosphere for physical stores of all kinds, Borders sales fell 15.4 percent overall at $542 million. The loss from continuing operations of $64.5 million was better than a year ago, but the operating loss of $33.5 million was worse. Sales at the US stores fell further, down 16.1 percnent to $520–but same-store sales were down by only 11.4 percent company to a year ago. The company says that factoring out multimedia, which they theoretically pulled down dramatically years ago, comp store sales declined 6.8 percent, indicating less […]
Larsson Windfall Finally Kicks In As Quercus Sales Rise 75%
Sales at the UK’s Quercus rose 75 percent in the past year, now up to 19.13 million pounds as they finally enjoy the river of cash from holding world rights to Steig Larsson’s trilogy. That said, the company–and market–has been troubled enough that they still wrote down a chunk of author advances, impairing profits. Operating profit before tax was 1.19 million pounds. Creditors are nearly getting paid on time now, down from 126 days to 74 days, and with luck that means authors are getting paid on a more timely fashion, too. With the Larsson revenue stream growing constantly, preliminary […]