McGraw-Hill reported sales and earnings below expectations and pared back their full-year earnings forecast this morning. Sales at McGraw-Hill Education, which will be kicked out of the corporate nest next year to stand on its own, fell 11.1 percent, to $937 million. Adjusted operating profit fell by the same percentage, at $314.7 million. The decline came almost entirely from the School Education group in particular, where declining state textbook adoptions drove a 21.4 percent drop in sales to $420.4 million. Higher ed and professional sales were “essentially flat.”
Publishers
Cengage Swings to Loss; Will Need to Refinance
Cengage had sales of $1.88 billion in their most recent fiscal year, ending in June, but the textbook company went from income of $47 million in the previous year to a loss of $37 million. Thirty-one percent of recents come from digital products and print-and-digital bundles. Bought by Apax Partners in the overvalued days of cheap and abundant credit in 2007 for $7.75 billion, the company still carries gross debt of $5.7 billion, which costs $480 million a year in interest. CEO Ron Dunn “says it will need to refinance within 18 months,” but also indicates to the FT there […]
Perseus Sees Opportunity Ahead
Perseus Books Group ceo David Steinberger issued his annual letter to employees, “reflect[ing] on a fiscal year of hard work and impressive results.” The privately-held company (which therefore does not release actual figures) “generated strong financial results” in their fiscal year, ending June 30. On the overall environment, Steinberger writes: “We continue to live and work in a time of global opportunity, technological revolutions, and economic uncertainty. The evolution and transformation of our industry in particular has been and will continue to be a significant challenge as evidenced by the recent collapse of Borders. The current economic climate is very challenging […]
Briefs: Amazon Lights a “Kindle Fire” Under Its Tablet; Quercus Sales Fall From Larsson Ebb; and More
Multiple reports (including this one from TechCrunch) indicate that Amazon’s tablet, which will be formally introduced at an event Wednesday morning, will be called the Kindle Fire, and will not be ready to ship until the second week of November. For the first six months of 2011, Quercus reported sales of 12 million pounds, down 20 percent from a year ago (largely due to a natural ebb in Stieg Larsson volume sales, which had boosted Quercus’s bottom line significantly for the past few years) though profits rose slightly to 3.4 million pounds during the same time frame. The cost of […]
Scholastic Sales Rise, As Cost Reduction Efforts Continue
Sales rose at Scholastic in their fiscal 2012 first quarter, ending August 31, up 9.5 percent at $318 million. Their seasonal operating loss was $33.2 million (or 81 cents a share), an improvement from a loss of $46.3 million a year ago. Both results were well ahead of analysts’ estimates, with expectations of a loss of over a dollar a share and sales of $302 million. The company announced a voluntary retirement program, which will cost approximately $10 million to $15 million in one-time charges, as part of a broader initiative to “reduce costs in non-digital areas by approximately $15 […]
Digital Lifts Trade Profits At Wiley
John Wiley reported fiscal first quarter results, with sales of $430 million and adjusted operating income of $60 million. On a topline basis, both sales and adjusted earnings per share rose 5 percent, though those gains were almost entirely due to foreign exchange. On a currency-neutral basis, sales were slightly better than flat but adjusted earnings per share declined 3 percent. Sales were slightly better than analysts were expecting, but adjusted earnings per share of 68 cents fell short of projections of 75 a share (it’s a little tricky, however, since after special tax benefits earnings per share came in […]