The financial weekly Barron’s has had a soft spot for Barnes & Noble’s stock for years, but unfortunately they have been pretty consistently — and significantly — wrong. Publishers are cranky about the company’s underperformance in the marketplace, as sales keep ebbing even as print book sales rise, and with the abrupt departure of ceo Ronald Boire many people are expecting yet another disappointing set of results when the company reports fiscal first quarter earnings on Thursday morning. Lightly followed by analysts, the consensus expectations for the quarter still estimate sales of $958 million (down about $20.5 million from a year ago), […]
Earnings Reports
The First Half of the Year: An Overview
With Bertelsmann’s half-year report from this morning, we now have all of the major public reporting for trade publishing companies for the first six months of the year (even though the AAP has not gotten past February so far). Below is a summary view, though for nearly every company we could append a number of special notes. The overall trend shows modest declines in revenues, as rising print sales in the US — up 5.7 percent in units, or 16.4 million books, in outlets measured by Nielsen Bookscan — could not make up for declining ebook sales. Currency exchange and M&A […]
Sales and Profit Down More Than 10 Percent At Penguin Random House
Bertelsmann reported results for the first half of 2016 on Wednesday morning, with book publisher Penguin Random House recording sales of €1.516 billion (down €181 million, or 10.7 percent, from a year ago), including the wholly-owned RH Germany. EBITDA fell in line with sales, down 10.6 percent to €185 million (or €22 million lower than the same period a year ago.) Those declines came despite persistent strength in the US dollar, which drove the division’s big topline gains in 2015. The average US dollar exchange rate for the first half was 1.1161, compared to 1.1152 a year ago. The British pound did slide […]
Results Steady At WH Smith, But…
On Wednesday WH Smith issued a short trading notice in advance of their annual results on August 31, saying the report will be “in line with expectations.” Simple enough. That release inspired an equally short but potentially confusing Bloomberg piece that declares, “In the era of Facebook and Twitter, a British newspaper seller pre-dating Queen Victoria is providing bigger gains for investors than modern technology. Over the last five years, WH Smith shares have eclipsed an index that also includes Apple and Google, even as its sales have maintained a steady decline.” Yes, WH Smith’s stock rose sharply between January […]
Merchandise Sales Lift Indigo
Canadian “book, gift and specialty toy retailer” Indigo reported results for their fiscal first quarter, ending July 2. Sales rose 4.4 percent, or $8.2 million, to $193.1 million for the quarter, “driven mainly by the continued double digit growth of key general merchandise categories.” Book sales were up on a same-store basis, but flat overall because they operated one less superstore and three fewer small-format stores than a year ago. Online sales rose 3.8 percent, to $24.9 million. Their net loss was the same, at $9 million. Since a year ago, general merchandise has grown to 34.1 percent of sales (from 30.6 percent) as print has ebbed […]
Sales Rise at Quarto
The Quarto Group also reported results for the first half of 2016, with acquisitions helping to boost sales, at $73.3 million up from $67.7 million a year ago. The biggest, and most profitable, growth came from Quarto USA, where sales gained almost $4 million to $31.7 million for the period, with an adjusted operating profit of $2.5 million. The US group was helped by February’s acquisition of Harvard Common Press’s list (for a total of $1 million), and a strong list of adult coloring books. The company does note that, “As anticipated, we are now starting to see signs of retail oversaturation with this […]