News
'Good performance' keeps HC UK ahead of budget
05.11.09 | Philip Jones
HarperCollins has bounced back from its poor previous financial year with "reduced operating expenses" helping it return to double-digit first quarter profits.
News Corp's book publishing business recorded an operating profit of $20m in the first quarter ended 30th September, compared with $3m in the first quarter last year. Revenue at the publishing wing actually slipped to $310m from $315m a year earlier.
Victoria Barnsley, c.e.o of HarperCollins UK, said the UK business had beaten "budget on both revenue and profit lines" after what she described as a "good performance". She added: "We are down a bit on the same period last year, but that was an exceptionally strong quarter and the market is also not as strong."
Barnsley said the UKs "best-performing divisions were languages and children’s, while the big-hitters of the quarter were three fantastic number ones", highlighting, Cathy Kelly’s Once in a Lifetime, Vera Lynn's Some Sunny Day and the Michael Jackson tribute title, Legend, Hero, Icon: A Tribute to the King of Pop, the latter of which which "took just two weeks in total – from initial proposal to the finished, highly-illustrated books sitting on the shelves".
News Corp said the result was due to higher sales at the children's and general books divisions, as well as reduced operating expenses from restructuring efforts in the prior year. HarperCollins UK was one of a number of big publishers to reduce its staff levels over the past year, losing 5% of its workforce in the first half of 2009.
Worldwide chief executive Brian Murray told the US trade paper Publishers Weekly that HC’s international businesses met expectations. In the US, he said that the major booksellers had all begun ordering again, after the destocking seen earlier in the year.
In its last financial year, described at the time as "exceptionally difficult", profits at the worldwide business collapsed from $160m to $17m.
