Publishers

For their fiscal first quarter ending June 30, Indigo reported sales from continuing operations of C$186.5 million, down 1.8 percent from a year ago, with a net loss of C$5.5 million, significantly less than the $12 million the company lost a year ago. The revenue drop was primarily “driven by lower Kobo eReader sales when compared to the strong launch of the Kobo Touch in the same period last year” and by Indigo closing 8 stores over the past year. The narrowed net loss came about thanks to “improvements in net margins and lower operating expenses” and no longer having […]

News Corp. reported fourth quarter earnings after the close of the market Wednesday. As usual, the release says almost nothing about their book publishing results and does not mention Harper by name, though the newspaper-dominated “publishing” division saw operating income fall almost in half, at $139 million for the quarter compared to $270 million a year ago. The publishing results “reflect a litigation settlement charge related to sales of e-books,” but the report does not disclose the amount. Part of the $131 million drop in publishing income is due to “a $57 million charge related to the costs of the ongoing investigations […]

CBS reported second quarter earnings after the close of the market on Thursday, with Simon & Schuster recording sales of $189 million, up 3 percent (or $6 million) as compared to a year ago. The sales increase reflected “continued growth in digital book sales, partially offset by lower print book sales.” (Close observers–like us–will note this is a subtle variation on the line that CBS has repeated three times over the past year: “strong growth in the sale of more profitable digital content was offset by lower print book sales” is what they have said in the past.) OIBDA, however, declined sharply […]

Harlequin’s parent company Torstar reported second quarter results Wednesday. The book publishing unit had sales of $107 million (CA), down by $3.3 million. EBITDA was up $1.8 million in the quarter at $18.99 million, which Torstar attributed to “positive year over year adjustments to returns provisions and lower promotional spending.” As in the past, the sales drop was attributed to declines in print revenues that couldn’t be offset by digital gains, though “the shift in retail sales from print to digital moderated in the second quarter.” In addition, overseas revenues dropped because of the “economic softness in Europe,” although “lower […]

Penguin’s parent company Pearson reported results for the first half of the year on Friday morning, with Penguin the only unit that declined in the period. Sales of £441 million were down £16 million from a year ago (4%), and operating profit suffered more, at £22 million down from £42 million a year ago. The company cited three factors in their performance: “A lighter publishing schedule, the exceptional performance of competitor bestsellers The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey and continued pressure on physical book publishing and retailing.” As evidence of that lighter schedule, Penguin US had 132 bestsellers […]

McGraw-Hill reported second quarter earnings Thursday morning. Adjusted net income from continuing operations was $243 million, up 15 percent and ahead of estimates in what was another “record” quarter for the company. Sales dropped 1 percent to $1.55 billion for the quarter. The education division recorded sales of $474 million, down 12 percent, while net profit, at $57 million, was a 36 percent improvement compared to a year ago–helped, they say, by the restructuring at the end of the last year as well as “ongoing tight expense management.” The company adds, as they did in the previous quarter, that the […]