Pearson announced preliminary annual results Friday morning, with sales of £4.874 billion down 4 percent (but up 2 percent on a constant-exchange-rate basis) and higher operating profit of £720 million — with lower restructuring charges but a higher tax rate, leaving earnings down to 66.7 pence per share, compared to 70.1 pence per share a year ago. Those results were in line with their “trading update” from earlier this year. Chief executive John Fallon declared, “We’ve completed our intense two year restructuring and reinvestment programme and performed well competitively despite some challenging market conditions.” The company forecast improved adjusted earnings per share of […]
Publishers
Trade Rebounds In Houghton’s Fourth Quarter
Helped by publication of bestselling What If, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s modest trade division saw sales rise in the fourth quarter to $48 million, up $2 million from a year ago, as the unit recorded a small net gain for the period ($500,000), compared to a small net loss a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA of $4.8 million also rose slightly, up from $4.5 million a year ago. For the full year, however, sales of $163 million were down $8 million, and the trade unit recorded a net loss of $3 million, down from net income of $6.6 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA of $12.7 […]
Simon & Schuster Sales Fall for Fourth Quarter and Full Year
Fourth quarter sales at Simon & Schuster fell by $10 million (or 4.5 percent) to $215 million. The second consecutive quarterly drop left the company $31 million below 2013’s sales, down 4 percent to $778 million for the year. (Though the year-to-year variance is relatively small, it is the lowest annual sales level for S&S since 2006.) Fourth quarter sales were said to be lower because of the comparison to a year ago, when Duck Dynasty tie-ins were strong, though in 2014 S&S ceo Carolyn Reidy said lower third quarter sales were due to the timing of their big releases and was expecting “a huge […]
Lagardere Publishing Sales Fall In Fourth Quarter and Full Year
Lagardere reported fourth quarter sales on Tuesday, with publishing sales of €537 million down 5.5 percent from€569 million a year ago — and declining further, 8.7 percent, on a like-for-like basis. (Sales fell even with a foreign exchange gain of €14 million.) The company blamed “an unfavorable comparison effect” to a strong fourth quarter in 2013, though it’s clear that Lagardere Publishing sales were soft for the entire year. Full-year sales registered €2.004 million, down 3 percent from €2.066 million a year ago — a 3 percent topline decline, and a 4.5 percent like-for-like decline. That is the lowest sales […]
Harper Has Flat Quarter Before Harlequin Gain
HarperCollins’ parent company News Corp. reported second quarter fiscal year sales for the period ending December 31 after the close of the market on Thursday. On an adjusted basis, before adding in the recently-acquired Harlequin, Harper’s sales were flat at $392 million, with EBITDA down 4 percent to $65 million — but pretty much a win for the publisher since it compares to the period a year ago when Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy was taking off. The company cites “strong performances in children’s and general books resulting from higher backlist sales during the holiday season, which largely offset the lower revenues […]
Rowman & Littlefield Grows On Acquisitions
Driven by the purchase of multiple Globe Pequot Press imprints last May and the Alban Institute’s book business in January, Rowman & Littlefield says that book and journal sales rose to $60.3 million in 2014, up from $51 million the year before. Client sales through their distribution businesses NBN and NBN International were almost flat at $78 million, down $1 million. R&L says digital products comprised 11.5 percent of publishing sales.