Bloomsbury reported results for their fiscal year ending February 28, rebounding from a weak first half to finish just above even: Sales of £111.1 million were up £1.6 million (due to acquisitions) and pre-tax profit nudged up by £100,000 to £9.6 million. The company adds that “since the year end, trading has been good across all divisions, with the UK and US showing particular strength.” Even after the addition of Osprey Publishing and 200 Conway titles, sales at the adult trade division declined to £44.7 million (down£5.2 million), with a tough comparison to the year they published Khaled Hosseini in the UK. […]
Publishers
Lagardere Publishing Rises On Weak Euro, But US Sales Decline Over 12 Percent
Lagardere reported first quarter sales, with the publishing unit rising overall on renewed strength in France and the weakness of the Euro, which works in their favor on US and UK book sales even as HBG USA and Hachette UK had weak quarters. That left unit sales of 421 euros up 7.1 percent on a reported basis, but down 2.2 percent on an underlying basis — taking out 29 million euros of currency gains on the weak euro, and another 8 million euros from last year’s acquisitions of Quercus, Constable & Robinson and Black Dog & Leventhal. Sales at HBG USA […]
S&S Topline Falls On Lower Print Sales
First quarter sales at Simon & Schuster fell by $8 million (or 4.5 percent) to $145 million, the company’s third consecutive quarterly revenue drop, as a result of “lower print book sales.” OIBDA was flat at $13 million (with operating income up $1 million to $12 million), with lower selling and inventory costs “more than offsetting” the print book sales decline. Bestselling titles of note included Pulitzer winner All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security by Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Philip Moeller, and Paul Solman. CEO Carolyn Reidy […]
Bertelsmann Profit Rises In First Quarter, As Attention Turns to Possible PRH Buyout
Bertelsmann issued a brief first quarter trading update (in the European style), with sales just above flat at €3.92 billion and operating EBITDA up 6.7 percent to €463 million (from €434 million a year ago). Net income rose to €143 million from €106 million last year. Though not mentioned in the report, bear in mind that — as we underscored earlier — that the contribution from Penguin Random House is supercharged this quarter by the strong dollar (and British pound, relative to the euro). CEO Thomas Rabe says in the short release: “The year started well for Bertelsmann. We achieved […]
Sales Rise at HMH and Company Increases Loan, Repurchase Targets
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported first quarter results Thursday morning, with sales of $163 million, up almost 6 percent from $154 million a year ago, “driven by higher education and trade publishing sales and the recognition of previously deferred revenue.” The seasonal adjusted EBITDA loss of $52 million compares to a loss of $53 million a year ago, though the net loss $160 million (or $1.12 a share) was up from $146 million a year ago on higher income tax. Trade Publishing sales rose $2 million, or 5 percent, to $32 million for the quarter, “driven by strong net sales of frontlist culinary titles,” Newbery winner The Crossover, and “strong backlist sales of […]
Harper Grows with Harlequin, But Core Comp Falls With Lower Divergent Sales
HarperCollins’ parent company News Corp. reported third quarter fiscal year sales for the period ending March 31 after the close of the market on Tuesday. As you would expect overall sales rose at HarperCollins in the third quarter because the Harlequin acquisition makes them a bigger company, with sales of $402 million, up 14 percent on the quarter last year, while EBITDA increased 6 percent to $56 million. But on a comparable basis, HarperCollins itself without the addition of Harlequin saw sales decline 5 percent, down $18 million to $336 million, as core EBITDA fell 8 percent, to a still […]