After a weak first half for their fiscal year, Bertelsmann has issued the briefest of Q3 trading updates. Sales for the first nine months fell by 0.7 percent to 11.4 billion euros; they don’t break out third quarter sales, which were approximately 3.765 billion euros. Net profit rose to 387 million euros for those nine months, a low margin that still benefits from comparison to last year when they took a 245-million euro charge to settle lawsuits related to Napster. (Operating EBIT so far this year is down more than 10 percent at 926 million euros, though the company offers […]
Publishers
Harper's Profit Way Down
News Corp. reported results for their fiscal first quarter, ending September, in which operating income all but vanished at HarperCollins, down to $3 million from $36 million, “due to a higher returns provision in North America combined with lower third-party distribution income” according to the release. (This quarter a year ago they profited from distributing Harry Potter for Scholastic.) CEO Brian Murray explained to us that the returns provision was related to their accounting (and reserves against sales of new titles) rather than associated with any particular set of titles or accounts. Sales of $315 million were 4.5 percent lower […]
Courier Suffers, Too
In other results, Courier Corporation reported fourth quarter sales of $76.3 million, down 5 percent, with net income falling over 23 percent to $7.2 million. Sales fell 18 percent in their publishing division to $16.4 million and income fell further at $1.1 million, versus $2.6 million earlier. Their Creative Homeowner line, which was hit early by the declining economy, continued to shrink, with sales down 33 percent in the fourth quarter, “reflecting the continuing nationwide housing crisis and resulting reductions in store traffic at home improvement centers.” Among the cutbacks, they will no longer distribute other company’s books through Creative […]
Lagardere Was Up
We heard back from Lagardere’s head of communications and our question about their third quarter earnings report has been cleared up: a typo mislabelled the year in one column of the publishing unit’s results. For the just-reported third quarter, Lagardere Publishing recorded sales of 655 million euros, which was indeed a slight increase of just over 1 percent from 648 million euros a year ago.
Currency Exchange Holds Lagardere Back
Lagardere Publishing reported third quarter sales ending September 30 of 637 euros, down by 1.6 percent compared to last year in absolute terms. (You’ll notice our report likely diverges from others, since the official company release charts results for the nine months of the fiscal year and concludes they are still rising; we actually break out the calculator to look at quarterly numbers). The company does not usually quantify currency effects, but this time around the impact was so significant they couldn’t help themselves, noting that “because Lagardere Publishing generates over 40 percent of its revenues in the dollar and […]
S&S Rises, Even as CBS Battles
Simon & Schuster broke from three straight quarters of sales and profit declines with a strong third-quarter showing. Sales of $225 million were up 5 percent from $214 million a year ago (though they are still down 5 percent overall thus far in the fiscal year). OIBDA and operating income were both up 8 percent compared to a year ago, at $25.8 million and $23.4 million respectively. The report credits “the success of best-selling titles in the third quarter of 2008, including The War Within by Bob Woodward and Real Life: Preparing For the 7 Most Challenging Days of Your […]