With sale up in both its education and trade groups, total revenue at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt rose 5% in the second quarter ended June 30, 2013 compared to the second quarter of 2012. Revenue hit $363 million with sales in the education group up 3%, to $323.7 million, and trade group revenue increasing 30% to $39.2 million. Operating loss for the entire company was cut to $5.6 million in the quarter from $21.9 million in last year’s second period. Among the reasons for the reduced loss was $4.6 million in lower labor costs associated with “reduced headcount.”
HMH attributed the increase in trade group sales to the acquisition of the cookbook line from John Wiley plus “robust” children's backlist sales and Common Core titles, continued strong performance of Life of Pi and Tolkien titles in paperback, as well as continuing sales of Francona and How Children Succeed. Higher education group sales were due to strong sales of intervention and professional development products along with strong adoption results in Florida and Tennessee.
For the first half of the year, total revenue was up 3.9%, to $529.5 million and the operating loss was $134.6 million, down from $174.2 million in the first six months of 2012. Trade sales were up 27%, to $79 million in the first six months of the year and education sales rose to $450.6 million from $447.3 million.
Earlier this month, HMH said it was making plans to launch an initial public offering.
