A strong fourth quarter performance, led by a 16% increase in its professional/trade group, helped push John Wiley & Sons to a record year for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2004. Total revenue at the company increased 8%, or 5% excluding foreign currency effects, to $923 million, while net income increased 2%, to $88.8 million. Excluding extraordinary items, income rose 12%, to $85.8 million. Wiley CEO Will Pesce said the year unfolded as anticipated with business improving in the second half of the year following a slow start.
Sales in the professional/ trade group rose 6% in the year, to $340.2 million. Among the best performing categories were business, architecture, culinary, education and consumer, while sales in the travel segment rebounded in the second half of the year. Sales in the technology category fell slightly in the year, although Pesce said sales "gained some momentum" during the second half of the year. Pesce noted that Wiley's books did particularly well at Amazon.com and Borders.
Revenue in Wiley's scientific, technical and medical group increased 6% in fiscal '04, to $178.1 million. The increase was achieved despite soft library funding, Pesce said, and was due in part to a 4% increase in book sales, the first increase in STM book sales "in a while." Worldwide sales of journals increased 11%. During the year, more of Wiley's STM business moved to digital publishing; Pesce noted that 70% of the firm's global journal subscription revenue was generated through Wiley InterScience licenses.
The higher education group had a 3% sales increase last year, to $152.9 million. Sales suffered from a weak fourth quarter, in which revenue fell 11%, to $20.6 million, which Wiley attributed to "sluggish market conditions." For the full year, the science and social science segments did especially well while sales in engineering and computer science were soft. The division continued to make changes in the year to adapt to market conditions. Its Core Concepts texts are pared-down, less expensive paperback books designed to be used in combination with online and customized components. More content was also made available online.
In its international operations, sales in Europe rose 13%, to $238.4 million, or 5% excluding foreign exchange gains. The increase was led by growth in journal sales in both Britain and Germany. The launch of the Dummies series in the U.K. also added to the increase. Sales in Asia, Australia and Canada increased 13%, to $99 million. The increase was due mainly to gains in foreign currency; excluding those benefits, sales rose 1%. The weakest unit was Canada's professional/trade segment, which had a disappointing year, Pesce said.
Looking ahead to fiscal 2005, Pesce said the company expects sales and earnings to increase by mid-to-high single digits. That forecast could change if Wiley makes an acquisition, but Pesce said that while Wiley is "aggressively" looking for deals, "there are not major targets available."
