In remarks at the UBS media week conference held last week in New York, John Wiley & Sons CEO Will Pesce touted the publisher's well-known brands in its professional/trade segment, its successful investment in Wiley Interscience and its focused publishing program in higher education.
In the professional/trade segment, which had revenue of $340 million in fiscal 2004, the consumer category represents 35% of sales ($119 million), Pesce said, led by such brands as Frommer's, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury and For Dummies. Pesce called the Dummies series "one of the great brands in the history of publishing," telling analysts that Dummies has great consumer awareness that extends "well beyond" North America. Another significant brand is Betty Crocker, and Wiley publishes about 50 titles annually under the Betty Crocker name. Next fall, Wiley will release a revised edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook, which sells about 250,000 copies annually.
The second largest category within professional/trade is business, which generates about 23% of division sales and includes J.K. Lasser and Jossey-Bass. The technology segment, for both the consumer and professional markets, accounts for 20% of sales. The balance of revenue in the professional/trade segment comes from the architecture, culinary, psychology and education categories.
Speaking about its distribution channels, Pesce said Amazon.com is now its second largest account. Sales with Amazon have increased significantly in the last few years, Pesce said, due in part to Wiley's efforts to provide the e-tailer with the information it wants. Returns from the bookstore chains, particularly Barnes & Noble, have trended lower in recent years, chief financial officer Ellis Cousens said, which he attributed to lower initial orders.
Approximately 77% of revenue in Wiley's STM segment is generated by journals, with books accounting for 20% of sales. Pesce said the company's investment in Wiley Interscience "transformed" the STM business, noting that the online product is profitable, global and growing.
Wiley remains "genuinely interested" in adding more content through acquisitions, Pesce said, adding that any purchases would come in the company's core businesses and would likely be in either the U.S. or Europe. The only "adjacent" area in which Wiley might consider an acquisition would be a company that owns "enabling tools" that would make Wiley's content "more discoverable and valuable," Pesce said.
