Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported Q1 earnings May 9, for the period ending March 31, 2019, with sales of $194.6 million declining by just over $5 million, and seasonal net loss of ($117.4) million, $16 million worse than a year ago. With weakness across the educational publishing markets, as shown by the planned merger of Cengage and McGraw-Hill (itself a bigger competitor looming for HMH), Houghton’s stock was down about 25 percent in the first hour of trading on the weak report. Trade sales (now called HMH Books & Media, but otherwise representing the same segment) were $40.8 million, up $4.1 […]
Publishers
Lagardere Sales Up in Q1, Boosted by the Strengthening Dollar
Lagardere reported Q1 earnings Tuesday, with sales of €460 million in the book division, up €18 million compared to the same period last year. The strengthening US dollar contributed €12 million of the gain, however, and the purchase of Worthy Publishing added €2 million. Lagardere reports that the US business “delivered solid growth” (up 3.3 percent like for like), thanks to “good momentum” in digital audio books. Companywide, digital audio comprised 3.8 percent of sales, up from 2.5 percent a year ago, over 50 percent higher. France also saw “good momentum,” up 1.9 percent like for like, while the UK […]
Simon & Schuster Reports Sales and Profit Growth in Q1
CBS reported first quarter results on Thursday afternoon, with Simon & Schuster recording sales of $164 million, up $4 million from the prior year period, attributed to “higher print book sales.” Operating income continued the long-term trend of steady improvement, up $1 million to $17 million. This marks the company’s seventeenth consecutive quarter of growth in profits. Counted outside of operating income was a $5 million charge as part of a CBS-wide voluntary restructuring plan. Similar to Penguin Random House’s voluntary separation offer last year, the initiative was “a one-time offer” of a voluntary buyout “based on a formula having […]
Amazon Doubles Net Income, Moves Toward Free One-Day Shipping
Amazon announced Q1 earnings last night, reporting that net income had more than doubled, to $3.6 billion compared to $1.6 billion in the period a year earlier. But cfo Brian Olsavsky warned investors not to expect similar performance in Q2, as the company expects margin growth to decline when it spends around $800 million in the quarter to evolve toward one-day shipping for all Prime members, starting in North America and eventually globally. The stock was trading near flat Friday morning on the reduced profit guidance. While profit was up, sales growth continued to slow, in line with analysts’ expectations. […]
How the New Revenue Rules Affected Penguin Random House’s Sales and More Details
Pearson filed their annual 20-F report with the SEC last week, which includes an extensive set of financial statements for the Penguin Random House venture. Those financials are actually more detailed in some ways than what Bertelsmann releases, and give us additional insight into some important aspects of the company’s performance. Most significantly, Pearson details the exact effect of the new accounting rules for agency ebook sales on PRH’s performance. As you may recall, we explained that Bertelsmann’s application of the new revenue standard — under which they now count the full consumer price paid for ebooks in many instances, […]
Lagardere Publishing Still Looking to Acquire
Lagardere published their full annual report, which provides broader guidance for 2019 — including a strong reiteration that the publishing division is still looking to build their English-language publishing operations through an acquisition of scale: “As part of the strategy defined for the Group by Arnaud Lagardère, Lagardère Publishing plans to position itself for the potential acquisition of an English-language publisher – yet to be identified – to increase its weight in that linguistic market, where a large part of the economic future of global publishing is being played out.” More broadly, the publishing group “is expected to resume growth,” […]