Scholastic Corporation
Q3 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 18 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to Scholastic Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Gil Dickoff, Senior Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

[Gil Dickoff:]

Thank you, Sarah, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Scholastic’s fiscal 2021 third quarter earnings call. Joining me today on the call are Dick Robinson, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Ken Cleary, the company’s Chief Financial Officer. 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.

[Dick Robinson:]

Good afternoon and thank you for joining our third quarter call. We started 2021 reflecting on our roots with a segment on CBS Sunday Morning focused on how for generations we have inspired and supported readers through our classroom magazines, trade titles, clubs and fairs, instructional resources for schools and more. Throughout our 100-year history, Scholastic has always been there to support educators and students as we do today, a full year since the pandemic shutdown began and schools closed throughout the United States and the globe. We are proud of our reputation and our ability to explain contemporary issues in a balanced way to bring stories of diversity and social justice to children, and to help teachers and students learn through magazines, books and digital materials, not only the skills of reading and learning, but the social emotional impact of great stories and the ability to understand through information and nonfiction, how the world works and how we operate our democratic system. All this is part of Scholastic mission and daily work. Turning to our recently completed third quarter. Despite the $96 million or 26% decline in revenue mainly in Book Fairs, we were able to improve operating loss year-over-year, because of the significant cost reductions we’ve made throughout the business. For the nine months year-to-date, revenue declined by $304 million to approximately $900 million this year, compared to our pre-COVID results last year. But our operating income only decreased by $9.7 million, excluding one-time items.

[Ken Cleary:]

[Gil Dickoff:]

Thank you, Ken. As a reminder, we invite questions to be directed via email to investor_relations@ scholastic.com. We’ll respond to your queries within two business days. And now I’d like to turn the call back over to Dick Robinson for closing comments.

[Q -:]

[Dick Robinson:]

Well, thank you all for joining the call today. We’re looking forward to this quarter, our final quarter of the year and to the fiscal year ‘21 end and now head to FY ‘22 as we see a strengthening market and improving operations for the company. Thank you so much for listening today. We’ll look forward to talking to you in July.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.