Waterstones released its annual report for the fiscal year ended May 3, 2025. Sales at the UK chain were up 7 percent to £566 million. Operating profit before exceptional items grew 9 percent to £49.7 million, “through the successful implementation of margin improvement strategies particularly within the online brands, and effective cost control helping to mitigate legislative payroll increases.” The company also opened seven new stores during the year. “Waterstones sales continue to grow year on year with strong performances across geographical areas, product categories and sales channels as it benefits from the enduring popularity of both reading and physical […]
Earnings Reports
Pearson Grows for the Fourth Quarter and the Year
Pearson released a trading update for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Fourth quarter sales grew 8 percent, with full year sales up 4 percent. For the quarter, sales in higher education (which includes textbooks) were flat. Virtual learning gained 20 percent, enterprise learning & skills gained 13 percent, and English language learning and assessments & qualifications each gained 8 percent. For the year, higher education grew 2 percent. Virtual learning grew 8 percent, enterprise learning & skills grew 6 percent, assessments & qualifications grew 4 percent, and English language learning grew 1 percent. “In 2025 we successfully delivered […]
Speculating on Barnes & Noble’s Sales
If Elliott Advisors goes ahead and files for an IPO of Barnes & Noble and Waterstones in 2026, ceo James Daunt’s cheerful talk of the growth and turnaround at BN will finally get turned into real data. While we wait, a lengthy Fortune testimonial shares this: “According to sources, the combined companies generated approximately $400 million in profits on roughly $3 billion in sales last year.” Waterstones does file reports with the UK’s Companies House, and in their last reported full fiscal year, through April 2024, the company had sales of £528 million (approximately $712 million today), and operating profit […]
BNED Finalizes Previous Year’s Result, Will Report Last Two Quarters Soon
Barnes & Noble Education finally filed a correct 10-K annual report with the SEC, restating prior and financial results for their fiscal year ending May 3. That filing marks the completion of their “internal investigation and related restatement work,” following the discovery of “unsupported manual journal entries that improperly reduced cost of sales.” Now the company says it “expects to file its quarterly reports for the quarters ended August 2, 2025, and November 1, 2025, in the next four to five weeks.” To a large extent the final topline results for fiscal 2025 match the company’s preliminary report from a […]
Scholastic Sees Trade, Book Fair Gains
Scholastic reported earnings for the second quarter ended November 30, with sales up 1 percent to $551 million. Operating income for the quarter rose 11 percent to $83 million and operating income excluding one-time items increased 20 percent to $95 million. Adjusted EBITDA grew 13 percent to $122.5 million. In the Children’s Book Publishing and Distribution segment, sales were $381 million, up 4 percent, and operating income was $109 million, up 6.6 percent—increases attributed to improvements in trade and book fair sales. Trade sales were up 7 percent to $110 million thanks to a new Dog Man book. Book club […]
2025: The Year in Finance
Publisher sales figures were stable this year, with most reporting companies just slightly ahead of or behind where they were in 2024. (Bloomsbury is the exception, falling from their record-breaking year in 2023, which had a new book by blockbuster romantasy author Sarah J. Maas.) Industry print sales monitored by the AAP ebbed while ebooks remained flat and audiobooks inched higher (now past the big boost from Spotify), outselling ebooks for the second year on record. (But also, AAP stats are missing data from growing publishers such as Sourcebooks and Entangled.) Here’s our roundup of results from the publicly trade […]