Bloomsbury provided a brief trading update, in advance of full preliminary results coming in June, saying that “revenue is expected to be ahead and profit well ahead of market expectations for the year ending 28 February 2021.” According to the board, the market expectation is sales of £161.8 million and pre-tax profit of £12.1 million. Sales for the previous year were flat at £162.8 million, with pre-tax profit of £13.2 million. Bloomsbury has not provided any formal guidance, so analysts have not had a lot to work with — though sales for the first half of the year were “stronger […]
Publishers
Pearson’s Sales Down 10 Percent for the Year, as Expected; WH Smith Sees Good Holiday Sales
Pearson issued their traditional January “trading report,” providing sales highlights in advance of a full annual report on March 5. The pandemic year only reinforced the longstanding trend: Global online learning (18 percent sales growth) was weighed down by declines in US higher ed courseware (with sales falling (12) percent). The businesses most heavily hit by pandemic-related closures, global assessment — which means tests — and international, were down (14) percent and (19) percent respectively. All this added up to a sales decline of (10) percent. While profit results await the annual report, the report says both sales and profit […]
Scholastic Second Quarter Results Hit Again By Continued School Closures
Scholastic reported earnings for the second quarter of fiscal 2021 ended November 30, with total sales of $406 million, down 32 percent from $597 million a year ago. The decline in operating income was even steeper, to $49 million, more than halved from $105 million last year. The trade division continued to perform very well, however: Sales were $126 million, up from $104 million, a 21 percent increase lead by new titles from Dave Pilkey and J.K. Rowling. But their big book fair business and, to a lesser extent, their books clubs, continue to be sidelined, with only a third […]
Corporate: Wiley’s Earnings Gain and Guidance is Reinstated, Barnes & Noble Education Still Suffering
Wiley reported second quarter sales for the period ended October 31, with sales of $491 million, compared to $466.2 million last year’s period, an increase of 5 percent. Excluding acquisitions and currency impact, however, revenue was flat. Adjusted EBITDA was $120.3 million, increased from $110 million, or 7 percent. Significantly, the company reinstated guidance for fiscal year 2021 (after suspending it due to the pandemic), now forecasting low-single digit growth overall for the year, with a mid-single digit decline in Academic & Professional Learning. The return of guidance and expectations of growth along with outperforming analysts for the quarter led […]
Corporate: Netflix Settles with Chooseco, and More
Chooseco’s lawsuit against Netflix over their interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has been settled, as the parties informed US District Court Judge William Sessions III on Monday at a status conference. The terms remain confidential, but “the parties did tell the judge of one slightly unusual condition — the judge’s Feb. 2020 opinion denying Netflix’s dismissal motion would have to be vacated.” The judge agreed, and thus “chose to pretend he never questioned whether Netflix’s film was explicitly misleading,” as THR puts it. In February, Judge Sessions had found that the existing facts were insufficient to support dismissal. In particular, he […]
People, Etc.
Kelsey Nolan has joined Ze Books and Unnamed Press as a publicity and marketing manager. She previously worked at the Los Angeles Times as the events programming manager. Cindy Kim has been promoted to associate editor for Little Simon. Andree Abecassis, 81, died November 4 at home in Berkeley, CA, following a brief struggle with cancer. For many years she worked at Ann Elmo Agency, founded by two of her aunts, and recently she had started working with Heyday Books. Best of 2020 The New York Public Library released their Best Books package, which includes top 10s for adults, poetry, […]