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 […]
Publishers
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 […]
Publishing Flat At Courier As They Take Another Writedown on Creative Homeowner Line; Hastings Keeps Selling Fewer New Books
Courier reported that both fourth quarter and full-year sales rose 3 percent, at $68.4 million and $257.1 million respectively, but weakness in the home improvement market led to yet another writedown at their Creative Homeowner publishing unit. They took a $4.7 million non-cash impairment charge due to “the systemic problems it currently faces in the home improvement market,” bringing fourth quarter net income down to $1.1 million. The publishing division had sales of $11.9 million in the fourth quarter, even with a year ago, as a 6 percent increase at Dover was negated by a 23 percent decline at Creative […]
Ad Recovery Continues to Help Bertelsmann Results
Bertelsmann has reported continuing strength in their business, with sales for the third quarter of 3.649 billion euros and operating EBIT of 265 million euros, yielding after-tax profit of 111 million euros. (In the European tradition, they simply report results for the first 9 months of the year; we subtract out and isolate the most recent quarter, since the other results have already been reported.) The company says results were “fueled by a recovery in the overall economy including an upturn in the advertising industry; long-view cost measures; and a brisk business performance both in conventional and digital media.” They […]
Sales Fall At Hachette In Third Quarter On Tough Meyer Comps
Lagardere reported third quarter sales in brief, with the publishing division’s “performance dented by a drop in sales of the Stephenie Meyer saga, and by a delay of a few weeks in delivering new secondary school textbooks in France.” They note that results are also lower “due to the non-recurrence of the sale of the international rights to the Twilight saga.” With sales of 634 million euros this quarter, by our count that’s down approximately 50 million euros or over 7 percent from 684.6 million euros a year ago. (They don’t formally break out third quarter sales.) Besides the difficult […]
At Simon & Schuster, Profits Rise Even As Sales Slide
Sales at Simon & Schuster declined by $12.7 million in their third quarter, or 5.5 percent, at $217.7 million, but profits rose more, with adjusted OIBDA up $2.8 million (or 10 percent) to $31.2 million, and operating income of $29.5 million up 11 percent. CEO Carolyn Reidy says the increase in earnings is due to a combination of “a lot of the cost savings we worked hard on the last year and a half,” along with a more profitable mix of formats and associated gains from things like renegotiating their children’s book printing contracts. Reidy believes “there’s been a very […]