Bloomsbury reported earnings for the six months ending August 31, with children’s trade dragging down sales and earnings, accompanied by good results in the smaller academic and professional publishing business. Overall, sales were £71.3 million, down from £75.3 million, and profit before taxes and charges was £2.5 million, down from £2.9 million last year. Trade sales were £41.5 million, down from £47 million last year’s period. Pre-tax profit was £640,000, down from £3.1 million. The declines came primarily from children’s books, with sales of £25.3 million, down almost 19 percent from £31.1 million a year ago, and pre-tax profit of […]
Earnings Reports
Bonnier Books 8-Month Report Shows Flat Sales and Improved Operating Loss
Bonnier Books’ parent company Bonnier released 8-month earnings for the period of January to August 2019, with overall sales for Bonnier of SEK 17.2 billion, up from SEK 16.1 billion last year’s period. (They report in 8-month and 4-month installments.) Bonnier Books sales were near flat at SEK 3.633 billion ($375 million), down from 3.636 billion a year ago. Sales are down more noticeably for the last 12 months, at 6.33 billion, versus 6.436 billion a year ago. Meanwhile, the EBITA loss improved, to SEK (111 million) from (215 million). Adlibris sales were also down, to SEK 1.325 billion from […]
Houghton Tells Investors It’s Doing Better, Will Fire Another 8 Percent of Employees
As part of an investor day presentation on Thursday, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that it “will make changes connected with the company’s ongoing strategic transformation to simplify its business model and accelerate growth.” With a “streamlining of operations company-wide for greater efficiency,” that corporate-speak translates into another big wave of layoffs: Over 8 percent of employees will be fired as part of the exciting new strategy (and that’s with “taking into account new strategy-aligned positions that are expected to be added”). They didn’t provide a number of people to be fired, which is their style. But this is almost as […]
Book Sales Keep Falling at Otherwise Strong WH Smith, With Purchase to Build US Travel Business
WH Smith announced earnings for the year ended August 31, 2019, with revenues for the overall group of £1.4 billion, up from £1.3 billion. The growth is all in the company’s fast international travel business — now about to double in size via a major acquisition. Alongside earnings, the company announced an agreement to purchase of the Las-Vegas based Marshall Retail Group, for $400 million. Marshall has 170 North American locations, 59 of them inside airports, mostly selling news, gifts, and convenience products. The purchase builds on their 2018 acquisition of InMotion in the US for $208 million (following an […]
College Students “Turn Away from Print Rapidly,” Reducing Pearson’s Sales and Profits
Pearson told investors it expects operating profit for the year to be at the very bottom of the original guidance range of £590 million to £640 million, as part of its 9-month trading update. The reduced expectations are due to weaker than expected sales in the US higher education business, which represents 25 percent of sales. US higher ed revenues dropped 10 percent over the prior year’s period, which Pearson attributed to “a significant industry wide acceleration of print attrition as channel partners and students turn away from print products more rapidly than anticipated.” As a result, Pearson now anticipates […]
Continued Trade Momentum Boosts Sales at Scholastic
Scholastic reported earnings for their fiscal Q1 2020, ending August 31, with sales of $232.6 million, up from to $218.4 million in the first quarter of 2019. “The big story in the quarter was our strong trade frontlist worldwide,” said cfo Ken Cleary on the analyst call. Trade publishing sales were $74.1 million, up from $61.4 million last year. In overall Children’s Book Publishing and Distribution, which includes book clubs and fairs as well as trade, first quarter revenues rose to $109.6 million, from $95.7 million. “Most impressive was our strength in series publishing — Dog Man, Captain Underpants, Harry […]