Houghton Mifflin Harcourt beats by $0.15, beats on revs; reaffirms FY18 guidance
- Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.70 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.15 better than the single analyst estimate of $0.55; revenues rose 3.9% year/year to $536.3 mln vs the $507.37 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.
- Billings: HMH reported billings of $1,108 million for the first nine months of 2018, a slight decline compared to the same period of 2017. Education and Trade Publishing segment billings for the first nine months of 2018 were $967 million and $141 million, respectively, compared with $979 million and $129 million, respectively, for the same periods in 2017.
- Guidance Reaffirmed: Co sees billings to be in the range of $1.285 to $1.365 billion. Content development spend for 2018 is expected to be in the range of $117 to $142 million, with total capital expenditures including non-plate capital expenditures in the range of $174 to $199 million. HMH continues to expect 2018 free cash flow from continuing operations to be negative (but improved from 2017 free cash flow from continuing operations) at the midpoint of the revised billings guidance range