After rising costs and sluggish sales cut into profits at HarperCollins, Lagardère Publishing, and Penguin Random House in the first half of 2023, operating margins have bounced back for all three in the first six months of 2024. Lagardère and HarperCollins in particular had marked improvements, with profits soaring on modest sales increases.
Notably, all three publishers have engaged in extensive restructuring efforts that have included job cuts, though those efforts now seem to be largely completed. At HarperCollins, sales were up 6% and profits jumped 54% in the first half of 2024, after what CEO Brian Murray called a “transformative” 12-month period. In an interview last month, Murray told PW the reorganization at HC was in response to a changed postpandemic marketplace.
Lagardère Publishing, home to Hachette Livre, created what it called “a new English-language management structure” at the end of 2023, which in essence formed one management team to oversee both Hachette Book Group and Hachette UK under David Shelley. In addition to reducing executive salaries, the reorganization involved major changes to Little, Brown and the HBG sales team and also included the further integration of Work-
man Publishing—a process that had been delayed per an agreement to retain Workman staff for a three-year period following HBG’s acquisition of the publisher in 2021.
So far, the changes appear to be effective. HBG reported a 5% growth in sales, with profits skyrocketing 74% in the first half of 2024.
PRH’s well-documented overhaul began at the start of 2023, following the government’s 2022 decision to block the company’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster. In a bid to streamline PRH’s operations, the company offered early retirements and also implemented layoffs, with PRH CEO Nihar Malaviya, like HC’s Murray, citing shifts in the postpandemic market as a significant factor in the changes.
The failure to acquire S&S sent PRH on a mini buying spree, which included acquiring the assets of Calisto Media, upping its stake in Sourcebooks to a majority position, and buying Hay House. The purchases helped PRH increase sales at a faster rate than HC and Lagardère in the 2022–2024 period. But while PRH’s 2024 operating margin was up over the first half of 2023, it was the only of the three major publishers whose profit margin was lower in 2024 than 2022.
As privately owned companies, Macmillan and S&S (the other two Big Five publishers) do not release their financial results.
A version of this article appeared in the 09/09/2024 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Earnings Rebound