McGraw Hill reported fourth quarter earnings of $153.8 million; or 50 cents a share, an 8 percent (or $27 million) drop from $167.3 million, or 53 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items such as acquisitions and a prior-year gain related to the sale of BusinessWeek, earnings rose to 55 cents from 51 cents. Total revenue rose 4.2 percent to $1.52 billion for the quarter, but the education side saw revenue slide 4.6 percent to $496.3 million and profits decrease to $496.3 million, largely attributed to an overall decline in textbook open territory sales. For the year, total net […]
Publishers
Courier’s Results Slide, But Profit Forecast Is Raised On “Positive Currents”
Sales at the book publishing unit at Courier fell 7 percent in their fiscal first quarter, ending December 25, at $10.8 million, but ceo James Conway III says “there were positive currents at work” and they “look forward to a stronger spring throughout the segment.” After a long decline due to the housing recession, Creative Homeowner sales rose 7 percent, and Dover increased online sales even while declining 3 percent overall. Courier’s larger printing business also declined–but with increases in their digital printing, the company increased full-year profit expectations anyway by five cents a share. Overall, sales for the quarter […]
Pearson Raises Earnings Guidance Again, Promises “Record Results” for Penguin
Pearson issued a brief trading update ahead of February’s full report of earnings for the year, raising their profit guidance yet again, to 76 pence per share (up from 72 pence per share), which took the stock to a new high. Even with the end-of-year Borders surprise, they say that Penguin “performed strongly in our key trading season and will report record results despite tough conditions in the physical book retail market.” Overall profits of 850 million pounds are expected to be up 20 percent over last year, “fuelled by [their] consistent investment in the global learning industry, in digital […]
Random CEO Writes on Year’s Highlights
Random House ceo Markus Dohle writes to employees worldwide to “celebrate a good fiscal year for Random House worldwide despite the hurdle of ailing economies in most of our territories.” Among the highlights, Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy is “on course to sell 14 million copies in 2010” in the US across all formats, with another 2 million trade paperbacks and e-books in Germany. Worldwide digital sales are expected to be up by 250 percent over 2009, and in the US he acknowledges that “for some of our fall publication titles, nearly half of the overall first-week sales have been in […]
Sales Up Slightly As Scholastic Underdelivers
Sales at Scholastic rose 2 percent in their second quarter, at $675.7 million, up 2% from $660.1 million a year ago. Earnings from continuing operations before taxes were $124.3 million, up 22 percent–except that the company took a large writedown this time last year. Trade publishing sales of $53.4 million rose 8 percent compared to a year ago. Overall, “results were below our plan, reflecting lower spending by school districts and lower than expected revenue in clubs.” The company said they had “lower sales of educational technology relative to a year ago, as well as higher promotion spending in School […]
Consumer Sales Fall As Wiley Stays Almost Flat Overall
Sales at John Wiley fell one percent in their second quarter, to $442 million, and operating income of $78 million is technically ahead of this time last year–but only because of last year’s $11 million writedown related to GIT Verlag. Absent that charge, income fell 10 percent, “due to top-line results and increased investment in digital products and support systems to support future business growth.” The professional/trade division was “soft,” particularly “compared with a strong second quarter last year. Low traffic and sell-through at some retail accounts contributed to these results. eBook sales continue to grow, more than doubling over […]