Latest Results

Interim Results

Quarto (Full List: QRT.L), one of the largest international co-edition book publishers based in London, announces its Interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2011.

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Financial Highlights

Six Months to June 30 2011 2011
$'000
2010
$'000
% Change
Revenue 72.5 68.9 + 5
EBITDA* 13.6 13.3 + 2
Operating Profit* 3.73 3.59 + 4
Operating Profit 2.66 2.50 +7
Profit Before Tax* 1.4 1.2 +21
Profit Before Tax 0.37 0.1 +274
Diluted Earnings Per Share* 4.4 3.4 +29
Diluted Earnings Per Share 0.6c (0.9)c n/a
Dividend Per Share 3.35p 3.35p -

* excludes amortization of non-current intangibles and exceptional items

Operational Highlights

  • Acquisition Activity
    • Acquisition of Frances Lincoln Ltd
      • A British book publisher well-known for its award-winning children's list and its horticultural titles
      • Significantly increases presence in the UK market
    • Purchase of Cool Springs Press
      • A leading publisher of gardening and garden related titles
      • Now part of Quarto's Quayside Publishing Group in the US
  • Continued strong divisional performance
    • Publishing division
      • Revenue up 3% to $51.6m (2010: $50.2m)
    • Co-edition division
      • Revenue up 12% to $21.0m (2010: $18.7m)

Financial Highlights

  • Improved trading; robust revenue and profit growth
  • Reduction in interest cost
  • Interim dividend of 3.35p declared
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Key Points from the Chairman's Statement

"It is simply wrong to portray the book publishing industry as being in decline. New information has recently been published, and confirms Quarto's own experience that it continues to grow."

  • Acquisition of Frances Lincoln Ltd
    • Frances Lincoln is a British book publisher well-known for its award-winning children's books and its horticultural titles
    • The acquisition significantly increases presence in the UK market
  • Purchase of the minority interests in Lifetime and Jacqui Small, and the acquisition of Cool Springs Press., and Quarto is confident that further interesting acquisition opportunities exist
  • Robust performance in the face of considerable retail weakness in the major English-language markets. Revenue and profit growth
  • Income from all digital streams growing, and is now expected to exceed 1% of Group revenues by the end of the year. Quarto is keen to expand its offering on new delivery platforms
  • Quarto's strategy for growth remains to acquire further publishing lists leveraging Quarto's international market knowledge and reach, and exploiting its infrastructure
  • Cool Springs Press acquisition gives the Group greater presence in the home improvement channel, providing both printed books and digital content
  • New co-edition title output being maintained as Quarto's content can be repurposed both digitally and in print form
  • Book publishing is an extraordinarily fertile industry, producing more new products each year than any other consumer products industry
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Chairman's Statement

Today, along with the publication of our solid financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2011, we are happy to announce the acquisition of Frances Lincoln Ltd, a British book publisher well known for its award-winning children's list and its horticultural titles. Founded by the eponymous Frances Lincoln, it has been run, since her tragically early and untimely death, by her husband, John Nicoll, who had been the publisher of Yale University Press in London. This acquisition significantly increases our presence in the UK market, at a time when many booksellers, in the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world, are grappling with the challenges and opportunities created by the impact of online retailing and e-books, and reinforces our confidence in the future of book publishing.

Business Performance

Reported Results      
  2011 2010 Growth
Six months to June 30 $'000 $'000 %
Revenue 72,547 68,937 5
Adjusted EBITDA 13,553 13,277 2
Adjusted operating profit 3,728 3,587 4
Adjusted profit before taxation 1,439 1,191 21
Adjusted diluted earnings per share 4.4c 3.4c 29
       
Statutory results to June 30      
Operating profit 2,663 2,496 7
Profit before tax 374 100 274
Basic earnings (loss) per share 0.6c (0.9)c n/a
       
Trailing twelve months to June 30      
Revenue 180,019 174,116 3
Adjusted EBITDA 36,532 36,092 1
Adjusted operating profit 16,518 16,445 -
Adjusted profit before taxation 11,753 11,649 1
       

Adjusted results are stated before amortization of non-current intangibles and exceptional items. The reconciliation to the statutory results appears in note 8 of this announcement.

For the six months ended June 30, 2011 adjusted profit before tax jumped 21% to $1.4 million (2010: $1.2 million), with adjusted earnings per share of 4.4 cents (2010: 3.4 cents), an increase of 29%, accounted for by improved trading, the reduction in interest costs, and the lower levels of minority interest. The board has declared an unchanged interim dividend of 3.35p net, payable on October 27, 2011 to shareholders on the record at September 30, 2011.

As expected, following the purchases of the minority interests in Lifetime and Jacqui Small, and the acquisition of Cool Springs Press and the repayment of its borrowings, net debt rose to $90.3 million (2010: $86.6 million).

This is again a good performance in the face of considerable retail weakness in the major English-language markets. For the International Co-Edition segment, which licenses content and supplies printed copies, on a geographical basis, to publishers around the world, the first half of the year is traditionally the quieter half. Revenues increased by 12% to $21 million (2010: $18.7 million) with the operating profit rising by 17% to $0.8 million (2010: $0.7 million). A steady release of new titles, and numerous reprints accounted for the improved result, and the Quarto Adult, Marshall, and Jacqui Small lists were outstanding performers.

The Book Publishing segment, operating entirely in the fragile English-language markets, benefited from a first time contribution from Cool Springs Press, a gardening imprint acquired in February, and posted a 3% revenue gain to $51.6 million (2010: $50.2 million). Operating income rose by 4% to $4.3 million (2010: $4.2 million). Good performances came from Lifetime, in Australia, Rockport, CPi, and Walter Foster in the US, and Aurum in the UK.

During the period, Borders in the US and the RED Group in Australasia went into bankruptcy administration, and business from Waterstone's in the UK slowed to a trickle, so these growth figures impressively demonstrate both the resilience of Quarto's titles, and our ability to adapt to difficulties in any single sales channel; in this instance, the chain store booksellers.

For the trailing 12 months ended June 30, 2011, group revenues were up 3% to $180.0 million (2010 $174.1 million). Operating income remained flat at $16.5 million (2010: $16.4 million). To date, income from all digital streams is growing, and is expected to exceed 1% of group revenues by the end of the year.

We are keen to exploit these new digital platforms for our titles. Most of our titles are heavily illustrated instructional and reference works and, to date, there is no affordable software to translate them into attractive digital versions for e-readers, so the growth of our digital revenues has not yet been explosive.

As the value of our content to aggregators grows, we are licensing some of it, on a restrictive basis, where this makes commercial sense. On both sides of the Atlantic we are testing a variety of initiatives, and shall continue to do so.

Corporate Activity

During the first half of 2011, we acquired the outstanding shares of Lifetime, from its founder, who remains involved with the business, and the shares outstanding in the hands of the founder of Jacqui Small, who remains in charge of her eponymous imprint. We also acquired Cool Springs Press, a publisher of regional US gardening titles, many of which are sold through the home center channel in which we are already very active with our CPi list of how-to home improvement titles. The smooth transition to integration with our CPi business was thrown off track by the untimely, early death of Cool Springs's founder during a fishing vacation, but a new, very-experienced publisher has now been appointed.

We also announce today the significant acquisition of Frances Lincoln Ltd, for a cash consideration of £4.5 million. For the year ended March 31, 2011, Frances Lincoln reported an audited profit before tax of £619,000, net assets of £3.8 million and gross assets of £5.9 million.

This important acquisition more than doubles the size of our UK-based book publishing revenues. Frances Lincoln also has a distribution business, handling sales and fulfillment for a number of third-party publishers. We anticipate that this will be linked with the group's existing sales and distribution activities, and will handle titles from our US imprints in the UK and continental Europe.

Frances Lincoln has a well-deserved reputation as a publisher of authoritative gardening and horticulture books, and award-winning children's titles. It publishes extensively in outdoor activities, UK and overseas travel, art, design, and photography, and general non-fiction. It is particularly well known as the publisher of Alfred Wainwright, Julia Bradbury, Christopher Lloyd, and many other well-respected authors.

John Nicoll, the managing director, will remain at the helm for a transitional period, after which he will be available as a consultant. David Graham, who joined us early this year to run the Aurum group and to create the new Union Press imprint, will head the transition team. Editorially, and creatively, the lists will retain their distinctive approaches but we anticipate that we shall be able to make some useful savings in the administration of the businesses.

Strategy

We are in a period of rapid evolutionary transition that is unsettling. In business terms, it doesn't matter profoundly to Quarto whether our material is delivered in electronic or in printed format. Our content has been developed for a static format. Simple electronic enhancements, such as searchability and a dictionary, are bonuses, as anybody who has ever used an index or sought a definition will recognize immediately.

Many start-up firms are groping towards a new medium that will take advantage of the unique properties of the portable tablet and e-reader devices, including smartphones. We are watching these developments closely, but haven't yet stumbled on an approach that seems likely to succeed. At this moment, the obstacles are both technological and economic. If and when a new medium is born for these delivery platforms, it will require a vast amount of content, and we shall then be able to leverage our position to become a significant player in the burgeoning market.

We don't endorse the somewhat fashionable concept that the printed book is simply a "container" for its content; in this centenary year of Marshall McLuhan's birth, his insight that "we shape our tools, and thereafter the tools shape us" helps explain why we have so many different kinds of media, and why "the book", as a means of editing and organizing ideas and content, will remain alive and well in something resembling its existing form, and distinct from other media. Discussions about the disintermediation of publishers, and the vitality of self-publishing, make for lively debate and fulsome commentary; the strong likelihood is that the outcome will be far less revolutionary.

There has been much over-excited commentary about the digital revolution. This discussion is generally well intentioned, but the more apocalyptic essayists are only treading a well-worn path that others have followed almost since the earliest days of printing, when books held a near monopoly of reading material. This isn't the place to rehash, in detail, the long story of the emergence of "competing" media, such as newspapers, serial publications, i.e. magazines, movies, radio, television, and so on. In the face of this competition, book publishing flourished, adding to the size of its audience, and to the output of new titles. It's enough to remember this to sense that the current new challenges are part and parcel of an evolutionary story.

It is simply wrong to portray the book publishing industry as being in decline. New information about total industry revenues in the US confirms our own experience that it continues to grow. BookStats, a comprehensive survey, and the largest of its kind, undertaken by the US book publishing industry, was published last week. It mirrors Quarto's own experience that, once revenues from new sales channels are included in the tally, book sales in the US in 2010 were 5.6% above 2008's, even during a recessionary period. Growth was across the board, and this, again, is in line with Quarto's own experience. The survey endorses our strategic direction, which has been to enter new markets in a serious way, and we continue with this approach because, self-evidently, it is working.

People, even those in the book publishing industry, often overlook some of the oddities of the business. For the best part of a century now, formats have played a big part in book publishing although, at the end of the day, we have been simply producing reading material. We may publish the same content at different prices and for different audiences and users in a hardcover format with a jacket, or in "trade" paperback format, or in the mass market, racking format; and now, in digital formats for electronic readers. The industry has grown, with the times, to adapt and "repurpose" its content for evolving markets.

We have analyzed a number of strengths that Quarto has and will build on and extend them.

Over 35 years Quarto has created books that, because they are well made and affordable, have delivered outstanding revenues over many years. We are good, therefore, in identifying evergreen human interests and satisfying peoples' desires to learn more, obtain new skills, and pursue their interests.

On the international co-edition book publishing side, we are among the very few firms that have prospered consistently. This is attributable, in large part, to the relevance and quality of our titles, and to the disciplined implementation of our business model. Although each title is different and economies of scale are not significant on the book creation side, our licensing approach gives us a larger international reach than much of the competition. In our book publishing segment, we now have enough scale in the US and the UK to build upon our position in burgeoning new markets, and will devote more resources to discovering and exploiting new channels to reach our target audiences.

Our strategy for growing Quarto remains focused on acquiring other publishing lists. This will enable us to leverage our international market knowledge and reach, and to exploit our distribution infrastructure. We, and other book publishers, are exploiting new opportunities; almost all have found outlets other than bookstores for titles, as bookstore sales have been challenging, and have benefitted from growing online and e-book sales. We are confident that further interesting acquisition opportunities exist.

Our acquisition of Cool Springs Press, earlier this year, is giving us a greater presence in the home improvement channel because most home improvement centers also have large garden centers, and we are providing both printed and digital content to retailers and users.

We are maintaining our output of new co-edition titles and have an enormously deep well of content that can be repurposed easily because, by and large, we own the content outright. This is extremely unusual among book publishers, and is a deeply valuable hidden asset of the business. We are regularly updating and refreshing our content, and it can be repurposed relatively easily. We already license some of it digitally - through public library systems, on commercial websites, and in e-books, and shall license it digitally even more widely, as this becomes profitable. This will put us in a strong position to act decisively when we determine further appropriate ways to monetize our content digitally.

Outlook, opportunities, and challenges

The collapse of Borders in the US, and of Angus & Robertson and the whole of the RED Group in Australasia, and the malaise of Waterstone's in the UK before its recent rescue, have stimulated much discussion about "the end of the book". I have written to shareholders before, explaining why we think this view is misguided and, inevitably, shall have to explain again our confidence in the book's future.

The travails of bricks and mortar book chains are real, but it is too facile to suggest that the book is dead. The big box bookstore chains have some common characteristics that did not serve them well in the age of online retailing and e-books, and there is some hope that these will be reversed. For dedicated book readers, a trip to the bookstore was always as much a voyage of discovery as for the purchase of a specific title. The loss of many bookstores will undoubtedly prove to be a massive challenge for book publishers. But, the numbers are now suggesting that more independent bookstores are opening than are closing.

Book publishing is an extraordinarily fertile industry, producing more new products each year than any other consumer products industry. A good local bookseller, such as Daunt Books in the UK, is a destination store attracting readers who browse and linger, and will continue to do so because the selection and presentation of the titles is so exciting. Online retailing will remain a competitive challenge and canny booksellers will have to pay attention to their local demographics, and carry exciting ranges of books. What will be difficult for publishers is that they will have to discover new ways to market their titles to the intended audiences.

The challenge is not so much to develop or acquire new marketing skills, although these will be necessary. Instead, it is to adjust the business model to allow for a much greater proportion of revenue to be spent on marketing. This may be easy for some businesses: at Quarto, we have long contended that the book trade's unusual sales methodology, i.e. of taking back and crediting returns of unsold merchandise from booksellers - something that developed as a marketing tool to allow aggressive publishers to "rent" prominent space in the book reader's natural habitat, the bookstore - has always been a marketing cost, even if insiders and observers have tended to lambast it wrongly, in my view, as evidence of the inefficiency of the book distribution system. While there's no suggestion that this institutionalized practice will disappear, recognition of what it means in an era of declining bricks-and-mortar shelf space, could well free up money to be spent on other marketing initiatives. The number of new titles continues to grow. This is because people are interested in more and more specialized areas, and books help people to explore their particular interests more fully, and very affordably.

Most book publishers have been working diligently to test new marketing approaches. The results, from observation, and our own limited experience, have been equivocal. For example, advertising our special interest titles in electronic media has been pretty unrewarding, even when focused in highly targeted specialized blogs and portals; by contrast, advertising in specialized print media remains a viable approach to generate awareness and sales of our titles. Social media has not produced the interest and outcomes that we, and others, hoped for from such exposure. Will this always be so? Undoubtedly not but, for the moment, we read the facts as we see them.

As far as e-books are concerned, they have been growing by leaps and bounds, perhaps not least because people have snapped up e-readers and enthusiastically bought titles to put on them. Their sales may represent as much as 25% of the units sold by publishers of fiction and narrative non-fiction, but they have made few inroads into the sales of illustrated books. To date, the economics and the available software impede the growth of illustrated e-books. No doubt, these obstacles will be overcome, but enhancing existing titles will always be costly and, if the medium is to take off for illustrated books, these will have to be created specially for e-readers, rather than being routinely converted from existing titles.

I write this report in the shadow of yet more convulsions in global markets and greater fears about economic recovery. Quarto's prudence will once again be tested and, while these are undeniably choppier seas, we expect to navigate safe passage through them. Senior executives and managers at Quarto are adept at managing change and challenges and I believe we remain up to the task.

Laurence F Orbach
Chairman and CEO
London, August 16, 2011

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Condensed Consolidated Income Statement
for the six months to June 30, 2011

  Six months ended June 30, 2011 Six months ended June 30, 2010 Year ended December 31, 2010
  $'000 $'000 $'000
       
Revenue 72,547 68,937 176,409
       
Operating profit before amortization of intangibles and exceptional items 3,728 3,587 16,377
Amortization of non-current intangible assets (721) (625) (1,246)
Exceptional items (344) (466) (2,491)
       
Operating profit 2,663 2,496 12,640
       
Finance costs (2,508) (2,604) (5,349)
Financial income 219 208 477
       
Profit before taxation 374 100 7,768
Taxation (30) 50 (1,363)
       
Profit for period 344 150 6,405
       
Profit for the period attributable to:      
Owners of the parent company 124 (186) 5,749
Non-controlling interests 220 336 656
  344 150 6,405
       
Earnings (loss) per share 0.6c (0.9)c 29.2c
Diluted earnings (loss) per share 0.6c (0.9)c 29.2c
       

The following information is presented as additional information and does not form part of the Income Statement :

       
Adjusted earnings per share 4.4c 3.4c 42.3c
Adjusted diluted earnings per share 4.4c 3.4c 42.3c

 

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Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income
for the six months to June 30, 2011

Six months to June 30, 2011 Six months to June 30, 2010 Year to December 31, 2010
  $'000 $'000 $'000
       
Profit for the period 344 150 6,405
Other comprehensive income      
Foreign exchange translation differences 686 (1,462) 1,353
Cash flow hedge: change in fair value 448 (485) 53
Net income recognised directly in equity 1,134 (1,947) 1,406
Total comprehensive income and expense for the period 1,478 (1,797) 7,811
Attributable to:      
Owners of parent 1,223 (2,066) 6,931
Non-controlling interests 255 269 880
  1,478 (1,797) 7,811

 

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Consolidated Balance Sheet
at June 30, 2011

June 30, June 30, December 31
2011 2010 2010

$'000 $'000 $'000
Non-current assets


Goodwill 39,350 35,885 37,197
Other intangible assets 1,771 1,610 989
Property, plant and equipment 9,913 9,735 10,106
Deferred tax asset 1,893 1,097 1,942
Total non-current assets 52,927 48,327 50,234




Current assets


Intangible assets: Pre-publication costs 56,194 53,969 51,605
Inventories 26,304 24,965 23,861
Trade and other receivables 39,704 37,965 50,786
Tax receivable 652 1,157 -
Cash and cash equivalents 29,466 28,976 43,783
Total current assets 152,320 147,032 170,035
Total assets 205,247 195,359 220,269




Current liabilities


Short-term borrowings (86,573) (338) (265)
Derivative financial instruments - - (190)
Trade and other payables (35,452) (33,797) (50,445)
Tax payable - - (1,674)

(122,025) (34,135) (52,574)
Non current liabilities


Medium and long-term borrowings (33,227) (115,191) (115,230)
Deferred tax liabilities (6,102) (6,372) (5,895)
Derivative financial instruments (3,463) (4,449) (3,911)
Other payables (46) (26) (45)
Total non-current liabilities (42,838) (126,038) (125,081)




Total liabilities (164,863) (160,173) (177,655)




Net assets 40,384 35,186 42,614
Equity


Share capital 2,045 2,045 2,045
Paid in surplus 33,756 33,756 33,756
Retained deficit and other reserves (1,918) (8,217) (1,461)




Total equity attributable to owners of the parent 33,883 27,584 34,340
Non-controlling interests 6,501 7,602 8,274
Total equity 40,384 35,186 42,614

 

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Condensed Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity
for the six months to June 30, 2011

 

  Share capital Paid in surplus Hedging reserve Translation reserve Treasury shares Retained earnings Equity attributable to owners of the parent Non-controlling interests Total
  $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000 $'000
At December 31, 2009 2,045 33,756 (3,964) (2,822) (648) 1,283 29,650 7,532 37,182
Total comprehensive income for the period - - (485) (1,395) - (186) (2,066) 269 (1,797)
Dividends to shareholders - - - - - - - - -
Dividends paid to non controlling interests - - - - - - - (44) (44)
Purchase of non controlling interests - - - - - - - (155) (155)
At June 30, 2010 2,045 33,756 (4,449) (4,217) (648) 1,097 27,584 7,602 35,186
Total comprehensive income for the period - - 538 2,524 - 5,935 8,997 611 9,608
Dividends to shareholders - - - - - (2,241) (2,241) - (2,241)
Dividends paid to non controlling interests - - - - - - - (1) (1)
Purchase of non controlling interests - - - - - - - 62 62
At December 31,2010 2,045 33,756 (3,911) (1,693) (648) 4,791 34,340 8,274 42,614
Total comprehensive income for the period - - 448 651 - 124 1,223 255 1,478
Dividends to shareholders - - - - - (1,323) (1,323) - (1,323)
Dividends paid to non controlling interests - - - - - - - (99) (99)
Purchase of non controlling interests - - - - - (357) (357) (1,929) (2,286)
At June 30, 2011 2,045 33,756 (3,463) (1,042) (648) 3,235 33,883 6,501 40,384
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Condensed Cash Flow Statement
for the six months to June 30, 2011

 

  Six months to June 30, 2011 Six months to June 30, 2010 Year to December 31, 2010
  $'000 $'000 $'000
Profit for the period 344 150 6,405
Tax expense (credit) 30 (50) 1,363
Net finance costs 2,289 2,396 4,872
Depreciation 714 740 1,373
Amortization of non-current intangible assets 721 625 1,246
Amortization of pre-publication costs 9,111 8,950 18,506
Movement in fair value of derivatives (190) (232) (42)
Profit on sale of fixed assets (266) - (8)
Changes in working capital (6,113) (4,884) 3,006
Corporation tax (2,454) (879) (1,465)
Net cash from operating activities 4,186 6,816 35,256
       
Purchase of tangible fixed assets (net) (603) (337) (955)
Investment in pre-publication costs (12,712) (11,751) (18,134)
Purchase of subsidiaries (5,212) (345) (634)
Interest received 219 208 477
Net cash used in investing activities (18,308) (12,225) (19,246)
       
Dividends paid (1,323) - (2,241)
Interest paid (2,660) (2,686) (5,399)
Dividends paid to non-controlling shareholders (99) (44) (45)
Net loans repaid 3,279 (1,031) (4,193)
Net cash flows from financing activities (803) (3,761) (11,878)
       
Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents (14,925) (9,170) 4,132
       
Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 43,783 38,788 38,788
       
Foreign currency exchange differences on cash and cash equivalents 608 (642) 863
       
Cash and cash equivalents at end of period 29,466 28,976 43,783
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Notes

The notes are available in the printable pdf of the results. To download it, please click here