Barnes & Noble Stockholders Unwisely Cheer News of Company's Split

Companies and Brands

Published: June 25, 2014 10:15 am

Last Updated: April 27, 2020 5:23 pm

The big news from Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) Wednesday morning is that the company will split into two businesses: B&N Retail and Nook Media. Both companies will be publicly traded, and the split is expected to be completed in the first calendar quarter of 2015.

B&N also reported fourth-quarter and full fiscal year 2014 results before markets opened Wednesday. The bookstore chain reported a quarterly diluted earnings per share (EPS) loss of $0.72 on revenues of $1.32 billion. In the same period a year ago, B&N reported an EPS loss of $2.04 on revenue of $1.28 billion. Fourth-quarter results also compare to the Thomson Reuters consensus estimates for an EPS loss of $0.59 and $1.19 billion in revenue.

For the full year, B&N reported an EPS loss of $1.12 on revenues of $6.38 billion, compared with a prior-year loss of $3.02 on revenues of $6.84 billion. The consensus estimates called for an EPS loss of $0.52 on revenues of $6.27 billion.

Revenues at the company’s retail bookstores and website rose 0.8% year-over-year in the quarter as same-store sales fell 4.1%, which the company blamed on bad weather in February. For the year, same-store sales fell 5.8%. Excluding sales of Nook products, same-store sales fell 1.9% in the quarter and 3.1% for the full year.

In its college segment, same-store sales rose 2.6% for the quarter and fell 2.7% for the full year. Total segment sales rose 18.2% for the quarter and were down 0.9% for the year.

Quarterly sales in B&N’s Nook division were down 22.3% for the quarter and 35.2% for the year.

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B&N’s outlook for the 2015 fiscal year does not overwhelm. The company forecasts same-store sales in both the Retail and College divisions to fall by low single-digits. B&N says it expects EBITDA losses in the Nook division to continue to decrease.

The consensus EPS estimate for the current quarter calls for a loss of $0.51. In the same quarter a year ago, the EPS loss came in at $0.86, slightly ahead of a consensus estimate for a loss of $0.89. For the full 2015 fiscal year, the consensus EPS estimate is $0.28 on revenues of $6.04 billion. That does not take into account the announced split of the company.

Why B&N thinks dividing the company will save it is a reasonable question for which there does not appear to be a reasonable answer, other than B&N has to do something, anything. Investors like the move enough to ignore all the bad news on earnings.

B&N shares were up about 8% in shortly after trading opened Wednesday morning, at $22.30 in a 52-week range of $12.59 to $22.41. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $19.00 before today’s results were announced.

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