In a trading advisory ahead of their annual earnings report on March 1, Pearson told investors that they expect to show earnings per share growth of “around 10%, ahead of our previous guidance and the current consensus of market expectations (approximately 61 pence per share.) The company says, “Throughout the year, we have benefited from strong growth in US higher education; good profit improvement in US school testing and international education; and the resilience of professional testing and our subscription-based businesses in the FT Group…. In addition, in the fourth quarter we began to see the first signs of trading […]
International News
Waterstone's Holiday Comps Down 9%; MD Johnson Is Replaced
Waterstone’s parent company HMV issued a brief trading update, reporting that in the ten-week holiday sales period ending January 2, same-store sales at the bookstore chain declined 8.9 percent. Managing director Gerry Johnson has been dismissed, and HMV group development director Dominic Myers has taken over management of Waterstone’s “with immediate effect.” (BTW, total e-book downloads for the period were 80,000 units.) HMV head Simon Fox says, “Whilst the recent performance of Waterstone’s has been unsatisfactory, it remains an excellent business and brand, with a great opportunity as the only remaining specialist bookseller on the High Street.” Fox indicates to […]
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Financial House of Cards Reported Ready to Fall
Two debt restructurings last year still left Houghton Mifflin Harcourt parent company Education and Media Publishing Group (EMPG) straining to sustain their debt obligations and covenants, and reports from Ireland indicate yet another restructuring is in the works that would wipe out equity-holders entirely and turn the company over to its secured lenders. Investors losing out would include the financial genius behind the $9 billion worth of acquisitions, Barry O’Callaghan, whose interest was reduced to about 20 percent of the company last August. (He also made himself ceo of HMH last year when Tony Lucki wisely retired.) But it also […]
Top UK Agencies Struggle to Show Profit
The Bookseller analyzed filings from six of the UK’s biggest literary agencies and found that they all lost money in the most recently-reported fiscal year except for AP Watt, which made a little under 250,000 pounds. (NB many of these figures apply to fiscal 2008.) Start-up United Agents lost 2 million pounds on revenues of 6 million pounds in their first year, while the PFD they left behind “appears to have made a loss close to £1 million.” A brief filing from Sheil Land “showed it made a loss close to £75,000.” The more current numbers come from Curtis Brown […]
Borders UK Online Assets Are Sold
The Capital Organisation, an investment group, has purchased the defunct Borders UK’s online operation and a database of over a million customers for an undisclosed price, the Bookseller reports. Operating under the less tarnished Books etc brand (a part of Borders UK), the buyer “is thought to be planning to merge the website with two other retail sites it already owns – goodmusic.co.uk and sellstudentstuff.com.”
Bookselling: Bankruptcy for Canada's McNally Robinson; Eso Won Expects Another Tough Year; Northshire Hails Haslett Novel
Much-admired Canadian indie McNally Robinson Booksellers has entered bankruptcy and will close two of its four stores immediately: one in Polo Park in Winnipeg and their Toronto store in the new Shops at Don Mills mall. 170 of the bookseller’s 425 full- and part-time employees will lose their jobs as result. Co-owner Paul McNally says that as long as the company’s bankruptcy plan is approved the other two stories, in Winnipeg and Saskatoon, will remain open. “They make money,” he said. “They have a loyal following,” while the other two “new stores absolutely did not perform.” The Winnipeg Free Press […]