Bloomsbury released preliminary results for their full year ended February 29, with sales up 30 percent to £342.7 million. Profit before taxation and highlighted items was £48.7 million, a 57 percent increase. Both sales and earnings set a record for the company. In a release, CEO Nigel Newton said, “This dramatic increase arises from our entrepreneurial diversification strategy which has forged a portfolio of portfolios combining consumer and academic publishing across formats, territories and subject areas, a resilient model delivering long-term success.” But that’s really not the story the results show. The company’s growth comes from consumer sales—driven by Sarah […]
Earnings Reports
Harper Collins Reports A Soft Quarter, As Physical Book Sales Fall
News Corp reported earnings for their fiscal third quarter ended March 31, with sales at Harper Collins of $506 million, down 2 percent from the record high $515 million in the same quarter last year. The decline was due to lower physical book sales, which were partially offset by higher digital sales and lower returns. Earnings improved 2 percent, with EBITDA of $62 million, attributed to “lower manufacturing, freight and distribution costs driven by product mix” and the absence of last year’s high supply chain costs, but offset by slower sales and increased employee costs. (Remember, the Harper union was […]
Bertelsmann Touts Organic Growth As Overall Sales Fall
Bertelsmann made a brief announcement of financial results for the first quarter, reporting overall sales of €4.3 billion ($4.67 billion), down 9 percent due to the company’s sale of their stake in Majorel. Organic growth was 3.6 percent. “Bertelsmann has gotten off to a good start in fiscal 2024, and is once again experiencing stronger growth from within,” chair and CEO Thomas Rabe said in a release. “We confirm our forecast for the current year.” At Penguin Random House—which was not among the businesses listed as the largest contributors in the quarter—top titles included Ashley Elston’s FIRST LIE WINS, which […]
Storytel Grows Earnings In Q1
Swedish audiobook company Storytel released results for the first quarter 2024, with sales up 12 percent to SEK891.9 million ($85.8 million). Operating loss improved to SEK24 million, compared to SEK48 million the previous year. EBITDA grew 50 percent to SEK50.9 million, which the company attributed to “strong streaming growth and a reduction of costs as a result of cost efficiency measures” (they reduced the workforce by 13 percent in the quarter). “The first quarter marked another step up in our financial performance as Storytel delivered a strong result with improved profitability and operational cash flow,” CEO Johannes Larcher said in […]
Higher Ed Slides at Pearson, Still Forecast to Grow In Second Half
Pearson released a brief first quarter “trading update” in conjunction with the company’s annual meeting. Higher education sales fell 4 percent in the period, “in line with our phasing guidance.” The company advises, “We are pleased with the engagement we are seeing from both students and faculty on our AI study tools. We remain on-track to add this AI feature to more than 40 new titles for the key fall sales season.” This time last year, higher ed sales were down 5 percent. For all of 2023, higher education sales of £855 million were down 3 percent on an underlying […]
Lagardere Publishing Shows Slight Gain, Improvement in the US
Sales inched up at Lagardere Publishing in the first quarter, rising €6 million to €576 million, “thanks in particular to the success of bestsellers in the United Kingdom and the United States.” US sales rose 3.4 percent — after a tough performance a year ago — helped by digital audio, science fiction sales at Orbit, and Liz Cheney’s Oath and Honor. In the UK, where they publish Rebecca Yarros, sales gained 4.8 percent. In France, however, sales dropped 4.8 percent.