AMS Posts 22% Gains in Sales and Earnings, Adds Capacity

Jim Milliot |

Oct 30, 2000

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AMS Posts 22% Gains in Sales and Earnings, Adds Capacity Jim Milliot -- 10/30/00 Sales at Advanced Marketing Services climbed 22%, to $177.1 million, for the second quarter ended September 30, 2000, and net income rose a like amount, to $3.7 million over last year's second-quarter results. According to AMS president Mike Nicita, the gains were led by strong increases in the children's, bestseller and mass market categories. AMS also benefited from good gains posted by sales to its core warehouse customers as well as from the expansion of its role in supplying most frontlist and some backlist mass market paperbacks to Waldenbooks. Nicita said AMS expects to be doing the same service for all of Borders's superstores by the end of next March. Recent acquisitions as well as a publishing program that is growing at a faster rate than overall sales also contributed to the company's strong quarterly performance. Nicita and AMS chairman Charles Tillinghast stressed in a conference call that they see lots of opportunity for future growth and set $1 billion as the next revenue milestone. (AMS had sales of $628 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2000.) In a program that started in June, AMS is adding more than 150,000 square feet to each of its distribution centers in California, Baltimore and Indianapolis, a move that will expand those centers to between 300,000 and 400,000 square feet by late 2001. Several of AMS's international units have already, or are in the process of, adding more space. The extra capacity will not only supply product to bricks-and-mortar accounts, but will help to put AMS in a better position to fulfill e-commerce orders as well as to grow its distribution businesses. Nicita noted that some of AMS's foreign subsidiaries already offer a variety of distribution services ,and that it is gearing up to offer a range of services to clients in the U.S., including acting as a full-service distributor. The company has brought on Jennifer Pierson, formerly v-p of marketing and international sales at Abbeville, as v-p for distribution. This year, AMS also attended the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time, where it sold old inventory. "We were pleased with the results," Nicita said. AMS has been selling excess inventory through such venues as the London Book Fair and CIROBE since it closed its retail outlets, finding the show route a more efficient way to recover its costs, Nicita noted. For the first half of the year, net income was up 21.4%, to $6.7 million, on a 17.8% sales increase to $325.3 million. In a final note, AMS said that effective November 9, it will shift from trading on NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange.

News

AMS Posts 22% Gains in Sales and Earnings, Adds Capacity
Jim Milliot -- 10/30/00

Sales at Advanced Marketing Services climbed 22%, to $177.1 million, for the second quarter ended September 30, 2000, and net income rose a like amount, to $3.7 million over last year's second-quarter results.

According to AMS president Mike Nicita, the gains were led by strong increases in the children's, bestseller and mass market categories. AMS also benefited from good gains posted by sales to its core warehouse customers as well as from the expansion of its role in supplying most frontlist and some backlist mass market paperbacks to Waldenbooks. Nicita said AMS expects to be doing the same service for all of Borders's superstores by the end of next March. Recent acquisitions as well as a publishing program that is growing at a faster rate than overall sales also contributed to the company's strong quarterly performance.

Nicita and AMS chairman Charles Tillinghast stressed in a conference call that they see lots of opportunity for future growth and set $1 billion as the next revenue milestone. (AMS had sales of $628 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2000.) In a program that started in June, AMS is adding more than 150,000 square feet to each of its distribution centers in California, Baltimore and Indianapolis, a move that will expand those centers to between 300,000 and 400,000 square feet by late 2001. Several of AMS's international units have already, or are in the process of, adding more space.

The extra capacity will not only supply product to bricks-and-mortar accounts, but will help to put AMS in a better position to fulfill e-commerce orders as well as to grow its distribution businesses. Nicita noted that some of AMS's foreign subsidiaries already offer a variety of distribution services ,and that it is gearing up to offer a range of services to clients in the U.S., including acting as a full-service distributor. The company has brought on Jennifer Pierson, formerly v-p of marketing and international sales at Abbeville, as v-p for distribution.

This year, AMS also attended the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time, where it sold old inventory. "We were pleased with the results," Nicita said. AMS has been selling excess inventory through such venues as the London Book Fair and CIROBE since it closed its retail outlets, finding the show route a more efficient way to recover its costs, Nicita noted.

For the first half of the year, net income was up 21.4%, to $6.7 million, on a 17.8% sales increase to $325.3 million.

In a final note, AMS said that effective November 9, it will shift from trading on NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange.

A version of this article appeared in the 10/30/2000 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: