Revenues at the company’s retail bookstores and website fell 5.3% year-over-year in the quarter, which the company blamed on store closures and lower online sales. For the quarter, same-store sales fell 5.3%, which B&N attributed to lower sales of Nook products. Excluding Nook products, same-store sales fell 0.4%.
In its college segment, same-store sales were flat for the quarter. Quarterly sales in B&N’s Nook division were down 54.3% for the quarter, primarily due to a drop of 78.6% in unit sales volume. Digital content sales were also way down, off 24.2% compared with the first fiscal quarter last year.
B&N’s outlook for the 2015 fiscal year expects 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. This is essentially the same outlook the company presented at the end of the prior quarter.
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The consensus EPS estimate for the current quarter is $0.36. In the same quarter a year ago, EPS came in at $0.15. The quarter’s results depend heavily on sales at the company’s College stores. For the full 2015 fiscal year, the consensus EPS estimate is $0.06 on revenues of $6.1 billion. That does not take into account the announced split of the company.
B&N also referred to separation of the Nook Media business and the company’s retail business:
In an effort to optimize the structure of the separation, the Company has been exploring various options and is in discussions (i) with its NOOK Media partners to potentially restructure existing agreements; and (ii) with potential third party partners. Such discussions could affect the structure and timing of the separation.
The company did say that it continues to target a separation by the end of the first quarter of 2015, but that it cannot assure that the target will be met.
B&N’s shares were up about 2.5% in the first hour of trading Tuesday to $24.03, after posting a new 52-week high of $24.40 earlier. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of $19.50 from four analysts before the results were announced.
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