Scholastic reported fourth-quarter and full-year results on Thursday morning. With the recent quarter dominated by their by big EdTech sale to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, sales from continuing operations were marginally below flat at $488 million, with operating income down 12 percent to $33.5 million (attributed primarily to foreign exchange impact in their international division, due to the strong dollar). Among the one-time charges incurred in the quarter was a pretax severance expense of $5.3 million, as part of their ongoing cost reduction and restructuring programs. Full-year sales from continuing operations were $1.64 billion, up 5 percent from $1.56 billion in […]
Publishers
Back to the Basics At Barnes: What’s Been Lost In the eBook Era?
On or about September 1 Barnes & Noble Inc. will return to its roots as a chain of retail bookstores, following the spinoff of Barnes & Noble Education and the nearly-complete winding down of the Nook experiment. So we thought it would be interesting to turn back the reporting clock and see what’s happened to BN Retail — and other major book chains — since the beginning of the modern eBook Era, as a lens for how to view Barnes & Noble’s prospects going forward. Barnes & Noble first became a different company in 2009, when they bought the privately-held BN College. […]
Foreign Exchange Holds Down Wiley Sales, As Book Sales Continue Decline
Wiley reported fourth quarter sales for the period ending April 30, with sales falling 3 percent to $442 million (down $15 million) on currency exchange, as half their sales come from the weaker pound and euro. Adjusted operating income of $63 million was flat for the quarter, and net income was up $2 million to $48 million. The company took another restructuring charge of $4.9 million in the period “for severance and other costs related to reorganization and consolidation across the business,” the latest in $29 million worth of restructuring charges during the fiscal year. In the professional development division, […]
Bloomsbury Edges Ahead
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. […]
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 […]