Riding the substantial decline of the pound against the dollar and a more diversified education business than some of their peers, Pearson confirmed in a short trading update that “we will report good growth and continued progress on our financial goals for 2008, despite the worsening macroeconomic environment” and “all of our businesses achieved or exceeded our guidance for 2008.” The company expects to report earnings growth of approximately 20 percent in early March, ahead of analysts’ estimates. Penguin “performed well, in line with our expectations, in a slower holiday trading season for the overall books market.” In their dominant […]
Publishers
More Big Publishing Declines at Courier Units
A “modest rise in book manufacturing sales was offset by across-the-board declines in specialty publishing segment” at Courier in their first quarter, with overall sales declining 5 percent to $59.6 million, while net income was $0.7 million, half of what it was a year ago. In the publishing segment, “the steepest declines were at Creative Homeowner in keeping with recent quarters and the persistent weakness in the nation”s housing sector.” Publishing sales of $11.5 million were down 25 percent from $15.3 million a year ago. The company says they had declines of 13 percent at Dover, 27 percent at REA […]
Scholastic's Sales Hold Up As Earnings Fall
In Scholastic’s [SCHL] fiscal second quarter, the company reported sales of $661.6 million, down $27 million overall (or a little under 4 percent), though just a 1 percent decline in revenue from continuing operations. But adjusted earnings were 40 cents a share lower than analysts were expecting and the company revised its earnings guidance from continuing operations for the fiscal year downward to $1.20 to $1.50 per share from $1.75 to $2.10 per share. The stock was trading significantly lower this morning as a result. They also announced a reduction in their spending plan for the balance of fiscal 2009 […]
Academic and Educational Books Keep Wiley in the Black, Even as Trade Falls 12%
Wiley reported sales of $432 million for their fiscal second quarter of fiscal year 2009, up 2 percent from a year ago, with earnings of .67 cents a share, up 14 percent. CEO William Pesce reports that “we generated solid top-line growth in our global STMS and higher education businesses. Professional/Trade revenue was down, reflecting the combined effect of weak retail sales and the comparison to last year’s strong first half.” Because of that diversity, the company remains “cautiously optimistic that full-year revenue growth will be in the mid-single digits, excluding the unfavorable effect of foreign exchange.” But with almost […]
Quercus Raising More Capital; Cheetham Steps Down
Shut out of traditional credit markets, Quercus is planning to raise 1.75 million pounds “in additional working capital and to strengthen its balance sheet,” nearly all of which will come from Pentland Group, which currently holds almost 20 percent of the company’s stock. Shareholders must approve a waiver from the takeover code, however, to allow Pentland to increase their stake to more than 30 percent. The thinly-traded company currently has a market cap of 3.1 million pounds, with the stock having fallen over 71 percent in a year. The immediate need is to refinance 775,000 pounds in loans that have […]
WH Smith Sales Slide
British-based retailer WH Smith issued a short trading update for September 1 through November, when same-store High Street sales fell 4 percent. They added: “Whilst we remain cautious about the consumer environment and anticipate competitive trading in our markets over the key Christmas period, we have planned accordingly, and the current financial year has started as we expected.” In other UK financials, sales at Canongate for calendar 2007 declined almost 4 percent, down to 7.8 million pounds from 8.1 million the year before, while pre-tax profits fell sharply to 271,000 pounds, 60 percent decline from the year before. The company’s […]