Sales in the trade segment of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt inched up 0.5% in the second quarter ended June 30, 2015, to $37.4 million. However, adjusted EBITDA fell to $412,000 from $1.9 million in the second quarter of 2014.
The increase in revenue was driven by sales of frontlist cooking titles such as The Whole 30, The Real Paleo Diet Cookbook and Cake My Day. Another strong performer driving the results was the Newbery Medal winning children’s book The Crossover, which offset prior year strong titles such as The Giver. The decline in earnings was, HMH reported, attributed to higher costs.
For the first half of 2015 the trade group had an EBITDA loss of $700,000, compared to earnings of $600,000 in the first six months of 2015. Sales rose 2.7%, to $71.2 million.
In HMH’s much larger education group, revenue fell to $342.4 million from $364.6 million in the second quarter of 2014. At the end of May, HMH completed its purchase of Scholastic’s educational technology group which contributed about $40 million to sales. Adjusted EDIBTA fell to $86 million, from $119 million. For the first half of the year sales fell 3.0%, to $471.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA dropped to $49.1 million, from $79 million.
