Pearson reported 2014 earnings of £69 million, after taxes, from its 47% stake in Penguin Random House. This figure is down from £78 million in 2013. PRH’s 2014 earnings contribution was lower because of taxes. For the year Pearson reported total revenues of £4.8 billion and operating earnings of £720 million.
According to Pearson’s preliminary, unaudited 2014 financial report, Penguin Random House results benefited from strong performances in children’s publishing and a variety of million-copy bestselling film and TV tie-ins. Bertelsmann will report full Penguin Random House results at the end of March.
Pearson reports that PRH had 760 print and e-book bestsellers in the U.S. market in 2014. Among the children’s/YA bestsellers were John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (8 million copies sold), tie-in titles from Disney’s Frozen franchise (17 million copies), as well as strong sales from the LEGO movie tie-in titles.
In the U.S. market, adult bestsellers include John Grishams’s Gray Mountain, Sue Monk Kid’s The Invention of Wings, and George Bush’s 41: A Portrait of My Father. Bestselling adult U.S. media tie-ins included Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken and George R. R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series.
In the UK market, PRH produced 206 bestsellers, among them children's/YA titles by John Green, and Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid series. Bestselling UK adult titles included Dan Brown’s Inferno, and Girl Online by Zoella. (The YouTube phenomenon's book became the fastest-selling U.K debut novel ever published.)
According to Pearson’s preliminary report, the integration of Penguin and Random House is “progressing well and is on track to deliver net benefits in 2015 and beyond.” The PRH 2015 publishing program includes titles by such bestselling authors as John Grisham, Jamie Oliver, Toni Morrison, James Patterson, Sylvia Day, Lee Child, Nick Hornby and Harlan Coben.
The report also said that Penguin Random House's “organizational structures have been aligned, systems integration is well underway and consolidation of North American warehousing will be completed in the first half of 2015.”