Scholastic Corporation
Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 22 Jul 2021

[Operator:]

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Scholastic Reports Q4 and Fiscal Year 2021 Results Conference Call. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gil Dickoff, Senior Vice President, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Gil Dickoff:]

Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to Scholastic’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2021 earnings call. Joining me on today’s call are James Barge, the Board’s Lead Independent Director; Iole Lucchese, the newly appointed Chair of the Board and also the company’s Chief Strategy Officer and President of Scholastic Entertainment, and of course, Ken Cleary, our Chief Financial Officer. I would also like to introduce Peter Warwick on today’s call. Peter will officially become Scholastic’s President and Chief Executive Officer on August 1. We have posted an investor presentation on our IR website at investor.scholastic.com, which we encourage you to download if you have not already done so.

[James Barge:]

Thanks, everyone for joining our call this afternoon. I have had the privilege of serving on Scholastic Board since 2013 and as a Lead Independent Director since 2015. And I have been constantly inspired by the mission of the company, the loyalty of both our employees and customers, and of course, the vision of Dick Robinson, who led the company until his passing last month. From across the globe, our publishing colleagues, occasional leaders, authors, teachers, principals, readers and the many others who had the opportunity to work with Dick over the years, shared an outpouring of tributes in his memory. We thank all of you. Iole, Ken and I together with Andy Haden, our EVP and General Counsel, have been hard at work ensuring that day-to-day operations move forward uninterrupted, with an underlying core of stability in our eye on the future business priorities and opportunities that have been identified during this past fiscal year. While I have been very close to the business for quite a while, the last several weeks have made three things very clear to me

[Iole Lucchese:]

Thank you, Jimmy. And with a special note of appreciation to the members of our Board for all their support and contributions during this time, it would be difficult to overemphasize the impact that Dick has left on publishing in children’s education and ultimately the children Scholastic reaches as well as the families and educators who support them. For nearly 50 years, Dick led Scholastic’s businesses, operations and strategy with a focus on both mission and growth. Now, it’s time for us to continue to move forward and build on Dick’s legacy. Scholastic has been built on a foundation of our employees working together with a collective drive focused on our customers supporting the goal of literacy and helping to provide every child with the opportunity to thrive. I want to thank each of you for embodying the Scholastic mission this past year. It’s your hard work that has kept Scholastic moving forward and the reason for our strong results this past quarter. We navigated this past fiscal year with focus and disciplined execution successfully. We will continue to support children in ways that no other company can as we have during this unprecedented pandemic and time of change. Scholastic dramatically improved results year-over-year across all business segments in the fourth quarter, not unexpected as the comparable time when a year ago was in the height of the pandemic shutdowns and uncertainty. Nonetheless, we are seeing strong underlying trends. In addition to closing a strong Q4, we were profitable ex one-time items for the full year and we are well poised for fiscal year 2022.

[Ken Cleary:]

Thank you, Iole, and good afternoon. Today, I will refer to our adjusted results for the fourth quarter and full year, excluding one-time items unless otherwise indicated. Please refer to our press release tables and SEC filings for a complete discussion of one-time severance, closure and settlement costs. The unprecedented nature of the pandemic created challenges for all Scholastic’s businesses. The actions taken by the company during the past 1.5 years, while drastic, were necessary. We focused our efforts in two distinct areas. First and foremost, we pivoted our resources to meet our customers’ change needs as a result of the pandemic. When teachers and students could not receive Book Clubs orders in the classroom, we offered ship-to-home options. When schools could not run our valued in-person book fairs, we offered virtual fairs. When parents needed easy to deploy learning at home, we provided teacher resources and digital content. When school districts identified the greater need for independent reading during the pandemic, we offered individual book packs that could be distributed to students from the school district. When our classroom magazines couldn’t be delivered to students and schools, we offered digital-only magazines. These solutions demonstrate the company’s ability to pivot to our customers’ needs, but moreover, these newly developed distribution methods demonstrate that demand for the company’s content remains strong regardless of how it is distributed. All told, these new distribution methods supported over $140 million of our revenues in fiscal 2021. Second, we’re able to drastically reduce costs in the face of a severe downturn in revenues as a result of the pandemic. Early in the pandemic, we initiated a project to reduce cost by $100 million, a target we exceeded. We continued our furlough program through the first quarter. We consolidated functionality and combined resources across the company, streamlining many processes. We leveraged lower cost options to execute various functions throughout the company. We eliminated substantial discretionary spending during the pandemic. We permanently closed 13 distribution facilities and consolidated our New York City office footprint into a single facility, and we temporarily closed other distribution facilities. We focused our technology and capital projects on those projects deemed essential, and we better matched inventory purchases to expected demand. The result of these efforts were significant, exclusive of one-time severance, facility closure and other costs. Our SG&A decreased over $170 million compared to the prior year. Our CapEx decreased to $47.2 million for the year compared to $62.7 million in fiscal 2020. Our net cash position of $176.3 million was relatively flat compared to the prior year-end balance of $175.3 million and our free cash flow, as defined, was $20.5 million compared to a free cash use of $89.1 million last year.

[Peter Warwick:]

Thank you, Ken. It’s an honor to be here today. Jimmy, Iole, Ken and Andy, thank you for your stewardship with Scholastic this summer. Thank you to all of the Scholastic employees who came together to support one another and to support our customers during a time of grief and at a time that came on the heels of an already tiring 1.5 years of change. Thank you to the Board for your support and faith in me to bring Scholastic forward in its second century and finally, thank you to Dick Robinson. It’s a humbling experience to be following Dick’s tenure as CEO, and I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity. It is because of his tireless effort to build a company and to cultivate a leadership team that knows teachers, families and kids better than anyone else, but I enter my new role with confidence that the future is bright. Scholastic will continue to do what it does best. That is to be a partner to schools and families. Virtually all schools are executing expanded summer plans. They are also creating back-to-school plans that continue to need to be nimble because of the effects of COVID. We know that top priority is safety as well as the need to accelerate learning from lost classroom time, while at the same time supporting increased social emotional needs. Scholastic will remain a trusted brand for families to turn to when they are supporting their children’s learning, personal growth and natural curiosity in the world. I look forward to speaking to you all again in the future when I can share how we are working hand-in-hand with educators and caregivers to accomplish all of this. Gil, I will turn the call back to you for closing.

[Gil Dickoff:]

Thank you very much, Peter. As a reminder, we invite questions to be directed to our IR mailbox, [e-mail]. We appreciate everyone’s time and continuing support, and thank you for joining today’s call.

[Operator:]

This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.