Barnes & Noble (BKS) Posts Q1 Loss of 56c/Share; Updates on NOOK Media Separation

Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) reported Q1 EPS of ($0.56), $0.07 better than the analyst estimate of ($0.63). Revenue for the quarter came in at $1.2 billion versus the consensus estimate of $1.26 billion.

We continued to improve our financial performance, while further executing on our strategic initiatives, including work on the proposed separation of the Barnes & Noble Retail and NOOK Media businesses,” said Michael P. Huseby, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. “Retail Core comparable sales continued to benefit from improving physical book industry trends, merchandising initiatives and store promotions, such as our Get Pop Cultured™ campaign, which was able to create excitement and incremental traffic and sales into our stores. College continued to acquire new school contracts and increased both functionality and title count for Yuzu™, our digital education platform. NOOK continued to reduce losses and launched its first co-branded tablet in partnership with Samsung, our first new tablet in almost two years. The new NOOK by Samsung provides readers the best of both worlds: Samsung’s world-class tablet technology, with our expansive reading and entertainment content catalog and award-winning reading experience.”

Outlook

For fiscal year 2015, the Company continues to expect both Retail comparable bookstore sales and Retail Core comparable bookstore sales to decline in the low-single digits. College comparable store sales are also expected to decline in the low-single digits. The Company expects full fiscal year EBITDA losses in the NOOK segment to decline versus the prior year.

Update on NOOK Media Separation

The Company continues to make progress on the separation of its Barnes & Noble Retail and NOOK Media businesses. In an effort to optimize the structure of the separation, the Company has been exploring various options and is in discussions (i) with its NOOK Media partners to potentially restructure existing agreements; and (ii) with potential third party partners. Such discussions could affect the structure and timing of the separation.

While we continue to take the steps necessary to separate these businesses by the end of the first quarter of 2015, there can be no assurances regarding the timing of the proposed separation or that such separation will be completed.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Barnes & Noble (BKS) click here.

You May Also Be Interested In

• IBM tumbles on soft Q1 revenue; announces HashiCorp $6.4bn acquisition
• STMicroelectronics N.V. (STM) Misses Q1 EPS by 9c; offers Q2 outlook
• Sanofi jumps as Q1 key profit measure tops estimates; Citi reiterates Buy