McGraw-Hill reported earnings for the period ending September 30, with sales of $542.6 million, down from $552.1 million. Net income also fell slightly, down $2.2 million to $53.4 million. Meanwhile, the company’s preferred, non-GAAP measure of profit, adjusted EBITDA, was up slightly, to $371.7 million from $368.2 million. Higher ed sales of $189 million were down $12 million, while K-12 sales of $252 million rose by $11 million compared to a year ago. Despite lackluster overall results, the company reported strong sales growth for its “Inclusive Access” program and other digital offerings (entirely offset, nonetheless, by contraction in print sales […]
Education
New Investor Eyes Barnes & Noble Education
Between late August and mid-October, James Barnes at BBA Holding Corp. built a position in Barnes & Noble Education, now at 5.07 percent of shares and thus requiring reporting to the SEC in a form 13D. Barnes controls approximately 2.4 million shares of the underperforming campus bookseller — and he also sold short puts on another 1.9 million shares expiring in 2020 at prices of between $2.50 a share and $5.00 a share (betting that the stock will stay above the put prices). After bottoming out at under $3 a share in early October, the stock now trades at $4.25 […]
People, Etc.
Author Christopher Beha was promoted to editor of Harper’s Magazine. He succeeds James Marcus, who was fired in April 2018 for opposing a controversial cover story by Katie Roiphe about the “Sh—y Media Men” list. Selected by publisher Rick MacArthur, Beha said, “Rick and I tried to be very clear about what our expectations for each other are, so there aren’t a lot of surprises.” At Simon Pulse, Sarah McCabe was promoted to editor and Nicole Ellul to senior editor. In the UK, Jennie Rothwell has joined Arrow as fiction editor. She was previously with Bonnier Books UK. At Springer Nature, […]
AAP Trade Stats Decline In August, with Big Drop In Higher Ed
As often happens, following positive statistics for July, the AAP’s monthly StatShot report shows declines in August, particularly for adult trade books. Yet again, the final adult trade comparison data from 2018 was revised, so comparisons are difficult. Adult trade sales were $407 million — down from $440 million a year ago (itself a revision downward from the $459 million originally reported for August 2018). Children’s sales filled some of the gap, at $197 million, up from $183 million a year ago. The total of $604 million was more in line with figures from August 2017 ($608 million) and August […]
College Students “Turn Away from Print Rapidly,” Reducing Pearson’s Sales and Profits
Pearson told investors it expects operating profit for the year to be at the very bottom of the original guidance range of £590 million to £640 million, as part of its 9-month trading update. The reduced expectations are due to weaker than expected sales in the US higher education business, which represents 25 percent of sales. US higher ed revenues dropped 10 percent over the prior year’s period, which Pearson attributed to “a significant industry wide acceleration of print attrition as channel partners and students turn away from print products more rapidly than anticipated.” As a result, Pearson now anticipates […]
Pearson Sued Over Student Data Breach
An Illinois parent has filed suit against Pearson in an Illinois Federal Court, seeking class action status and accusing the textbook company of negligence in a data breach that affected a million students in 13,000 schools across the US. The cyberattack on Pearson’s AIMSweb occurred in November 2018, and was apparently detected by the FBI in March 2019. The suit charges that “even after learning of the data breach in March” from the FBI, Pearson “concealed that fact from impacted schools for four months, failing to disclose it until late July 2019.” Even then, the suit charges, “they concealed the […]