Publishers

Pearson cheered investors by announcing plans for a third broad-scale restructuring, focused on North America, which should lead to further staff reductions. For now, all they are saying is, “We have engaged in a further rigorous cost benchmarking process across our business and have identified a further significant additional cost saving opportunity, the largest parts of which are in general and administrative expenses and in North America. We are currently undertaking the detailed planning to enable us to deliver annualized cost savings of £300m by the end of 2019. We will give more detail on the timing and costs of […]

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported less dramatic results for their first quarter on Thursday morning. Sales of $221.9 million were up $16.1 million from a year ago, largely due to higher sales in California Reading and a $5 million fee “associated with the expiration of a distribution agreement.” They were also helped by a rebound in the trade division, where sales were up by $5 million (after declining $2.3 million in the same quarter a year ago). The operating loss, for what is seasonally their worst quarter, improved to ($96) million, from ($122) million a year ago — but nearly all of the costs and […]

Quarto reported sales of $188 million for 2016, up $6 million from the year before, though operating profit fell to just $1.7 million, due to the $14.2 impairment charge related to the Books & Gifts Direct businesses in Australia and New Zealand that are being sold. Operating profit absent that division was $18.6 million, up $3 million. “Underlying” sales, without the $12.7 million added by the acquisitions of becker&mayer and Harvard Common Press during the year, also declined. (In particular, becker&mayer “exceeded management expectations by effectively becoming our sixth most profitable imprint this year.”) After tax, the company recorded a […]

Bertelsmann reported full results for 2016 on Tuesday morning, with sales at the Penguin Random House division falling 9.6 percent to €3,361 million (in line with the 10.7 percent decline they reported after the first six months of the year). Operating EBITDA was €537 million, compared to €557 million a year ago. (From here forward, we will refer to the PRH reporting division, which includes the separate Random House Germany, as PRH+, and will use PRH for just the Penguin Random House joint venture.) At Penguin Random House on its own, sales were €3,059 million, down €335 million, or 9.9 […]

Scholastic reported lower sales and a higher seasonal loss for their fiscal third quarter, ending February 28, but the company said it “controlled costs effectively, protecting profits despite reduced sales in clubs.” Sales of $336 million were down by 8.2 percent ($30 million), on “lower revenues in book clubs and trade,” with an operating loss of $23.6 million — $7.2 million higher than a year ago. “Trade sales returned to more normal levels after an exceptional first half driven by new Harry Potter publishing,” the company said, though trade revenues were below the same point a year ago: At $49.2 million, trade […]