Scholastic Reports Fiscal 2024 First Quarter Results

About this update from Scholastic Corporation

[{"type":"text","content":"The Company Affirms Fiscal 2024 Guidance\nOver $42M Returned to Shareholders in Quarter\nNEW YORK, Sept. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Scholastic Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHL), the global children's publishing, education and media company, today reported financial results for the Company's fiscal first quarter ended August 31, 2023. The Company typically generates an operating loss in the first quarter, when schools are not in session.\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \nPeter Warwick, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, \"Building on a strong end to fiscal 2023, Scholastic made solid progress this summer, implementing our newly integrated School Reading Events strategy while optimizing and investing in other areas of our business for long-term growth. As expected, first quarter's operating loss grew from a year ago, reflecting this spending as well as the timing and seasonality of sales in our Education Solutions division.\n\"We have a strong plan for Book Fairs this year, building on the successful strategies that have transformed this business over the past two years. Applying that learning, we are also strategically transitioning Book Clubs to a smaller, more profitable core supporting future growth in School Reading Events. In our Trade division last quarter, we had multiple frontlist bestsellers, including This Winter by Alice Oseman, The Bad Guys® #17 in Let the Games Begin! by Aaron Blabey, The Official Harry Potter Cookbook and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in paperback. These helped partly offset lower backlist sales, reflective of the overall retail bookselling market, which continued to revert to pre-pandemic sales levels. Looking ahead at the fall and spring, we are excited about new Dog Man, Cat Kid Comic Club, and Heartstopper titles, among others, plus the release of The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac. We also expect the release of the new Goosebumps® TV series on Disney+® and Hulu® to introduce our beloved book series to a new generation of readers.\n\"In Education Solutions, we continued investing to build capabilities and to focus the organization around executing our blended learning strategy under new leadership. First quarter sales were lower year-over-year, as expected, reflecting the shifting seasonality of this business and the timing of revenues from state-sponsored programs. We remain positive about the re...

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