Yesterday Lagardere release their more detailed annual report, which also includes profits for fiscal 2008 (they released basic sales figures of 2.159 billion euros earlier, as we previously reported). They company says EBIT for 2008 was 236 million euros, up 3.3 percent from a year ago, with operating margins up slightly to 11.4 percent. The US comprised 22 percent of sales in 2008, up from 18 percent a year ago, making it larger than Hachette UK for the first time, which saw its share of sales drop from 24 percent a year ago to 18 percent in 2008. On that […]
Publishers
Wiley's Pesce Forsees Trade Turnaround
John Wiley’s conference call with investors following yesterday’s quarterly earnings release yielded more interesting conversation than these events often produce. (It includes a discussion of possible economic models to drive open access research publishing). CEO William Pesce says that in the “very weak retail environment particularly in the US….we’re anticipating that the improvement will come or begin to come in the fourth quarter. That assumes of course that there’s nothing that happens in a significant way in terms of markets deteriorating any further.” But he added, “we’re not expecting a huge turnaround in the market in the fourth quarter but […]
Currency Holds Wiley Back; Trade Suffers
Sales at Wiley fell 13 percent in their fiscal third quarter to $374 million, with the company citing a “$47 million unfavorable foreign exchange impact” and also suffering from weakness in the US trade segment. (They say that sales fell 2 percent without the currency effects, “due to market conditions affecting the Professional/Trade business and processing delays in STMS related to journal subscription renewals.”) Income before taxes fell 16 percent to $44 million, with adjusted earnings per diluted share down 15 percent at $0.57. Wiley reduced full-year sales guidance “from mid single digit growth to low single digit growth on […]
At Quarto, MBI Lifts Sales, But Recession Hurts Profits
Full-year sales at The Quarto Group rose 13 percent to 112.7 million pounds, but only because of the full-year integration of their MBI acquisition and the late-year rally in the dollar. Adjusted operating profit rose 23 percent to 6.4 million pounds, but actual operating profit plunged over 45 percent to 5.25 million pounds. As part of the report, the board said it “is discussing whether to change the group’s reporting currency from sterling to the US dollar” which “would give a more nuanced view of performance.” Chairman Laurence Orbach tells shareholders that “November was horrible…. Books commissioned in earlier years […]
Currency Drives Strong Year for Penguin and Pearson
As expected, Penguin rode the big swing in dollar/pound exchange rates to sales for the year of 903 pounds, a 6.7 percent increase, as adjusted operating profit rose 26 percent, to 93 million pounds, exceeding the company’s long-discussed target margin of 10 percent a year. (On a “constant exchange rate basis,” though, the company says sales were flat, and profits rose 4 percent; on an underlying basis, after accounting for the sale of a small wholesaling business in 2007, sales grew 3 percent.) Those profit gains came in spite of a charge in the “the small units of millions of […]
Weak Currency Drives Strong Finish for Harlequin
Harlequin record a strong fourth quarter, with sales of $126 million (CA) up over 18 percent from a year ago, and ebitda of $18.4 million up more than 30 percent. Good results were made even stronger by the decline of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar, and they say that “Harlequin’s revenues, to date, have not been significantly affected by the global, and in particular, U.S. economic situation.” But parent Torstar suffered overall, with writedowns producing a net loss of $211 million for the quarter. They are cutting their dividend in half, and “as part of a planned transition,” […]