Although total sales for the fiscal year ended April 30 rose only 2%, to $1.79 billion, at John Wiley, operating income increased 13%, to $280.4 million, boosting the company’s operating margin to 15.7%. Wiley said 40% of its revenue came from digital products and the company will continue to focus on publishing “must have” information. That focus led to the purchase earlier in the fiscal year of Inscape Holdings and the decision to put up for sale some consumer assets (travel, culinary, general interest, nautical, pets, crafts, Webster’s New World, and Cliff’s Notes), which had sales in fiscal 2012 of $80 million and a $6 million contribution to profit. Wiley had little updated information on the possible divestiture, with CEO Stephen Smith telling analysts only that “we are fully engaged in the process of finding a right buyer and situation for our consumer assets.”
The consumer lines are part of the Professional/Trade group. For the full year, P/T revenue fell just under 1%, to $433.6 million. Digital revenue, which includes e-books, online advertising, content-enabled services and content licensing, accounted for 15% of total division revenue, up from 10% in the prior year. E-book sales alone rose approximately 70% over the previous year to $40 million, or 9% of total P/T revenue.
