Over at Borders, sales for the quarter fell 12.7 percent, at $595.5 million, with an operating loss of $39 million that was equal to last year’s deficit. (Their adjusted EBITDA loss of $34.2 million was higher than the $25.5 million a year ago.) The same-store sales declines were almost as brutal as the overall drop: superstore comps were down 12.1 percent (and still down 8.1 percent excluding multimedia), while Walden comps were down 12.7 percent. Total superstore sales were $492 million (down 12.1 percent), with Walden sales of $73 million down 20.3 percent from fewer stores. Calling the results “both […]
Earnings Reports
Sales Drop Lessens at Books-A-Million
BAM announced third quarter sales of $111 million, as same-store sales declined 1.9 percent compared to a year ago. Their net loss of $1.6 million was an improvement over last year’s loss of $2.2 million. Bear in mind, however, that for all booksellers comparisons this reporting quarter, the bar is already quite low. It was this time a year ago, for example, that BAM reported same-store sales had dropped 9.9 percent. So this time they are a doing just a little worse than last year–but last year they were performing terribly. CEO Clyde Anderson reiterated, “Comparable store sales for the […]
More Financial News: Bigger than Expected Loss at Hastings; Santillana Deal May Fall Through
In other financial news, sales at Hastings fell 1.7 percent in the third quarter, at $112.3 million, with the company showing a net loss of $3.4 million–at -36 cents a share that was well below what the company’s single analyst was forecasting, and $0.7 million worse than Hasting’s own internal forecast. As a result, they formally reduced their guidance on full-year earnings by five cents a share. According to the company’s category breakouts, book sales comps were just above flat at 0.2 percent for the quarter (also up 1 percent for the year), but publishers probably don’t benefit from the […]
Modest Growth At S&S
Simon & Schuster managed to grow both sales and income in their fiscal third quarter, albeit modestly, as sales rose 2 percent to 230.4 million, OIBDA was up 10 percent to $28.4 million, and operating income rose 14 percent of 26.6 million. The sales gain is attributed to “the timing of the release of titles” while the rise in profits was “primarily due to revenue growth, partially offset by higher write-offs of advances for author royalties.” As CEO Carolyn Reidy noted, “we paid for these books in a different environment” and “when sales are down, royalty writeoffs are up–it’s a […]
Even with Ambitious Comp, Lagardere Publishing Still Growing
Lagardere’s publishing unit reported another sales increase for their fiscal third quarter, up 4.5 percent at 684.6 million euros, even though the period is compared against the beginning of the big Stephenie Meyer breakout in July 2008. The company also had to contend with a weakened dollar and a still-weak pound, yet at HBG US, “the pace of sales growth remained very strong through the summer at over 15 percent despite a tough comparative.” Looking forward the company does concede that publishing “faces a particularly challenging fourth-quarter comparative, as the success of the Stephenie Meyer saga drove like-for-like sales growth […]
More Reports, from Courier, Quarto and Canongate
In other corporate earnings reports, Courier finished a tough year down 10 percent in sales in the fourth quarter. Their publishing unit–comprising Dover, the recession-struck Creative Homeowner, and Research & Education Association–dropped another 28 percent in sales for the quarter, at $11.9 million, though much of gap is due to Creative Homeowner discontinuing its distribution operation earlier in the year. The group had operating income of $928,000 for the period, down from $1.3 million a year ago. For the full year, the publishing group’s sales were $46.8 million, down 24 percent from $61.9. The company says Dover and REA were […]