News Corp Reports Profit on Book, Real Estate Growth
August 08 2016 - 5:54PM
Dow Jones News
By Lukas I. Alpert
News Corp swung to a profit in the June quarter, helped by a
legal settlement, as the book and digital real estate units posted
growth and newspaper advertising revenue remained weak.
The company -- which publishes The Wall Street Journal as well
as other newspapers in the U.K., Australia and the U.S. -- reported
net income of $89 million, or 15 cents a share, compared with a
loss of $379 million, or 65 cents a share, in the year-earlier
period. Revenue rose 5% to $2.2 billion.
The latest quarter's results included a $122 million gain in the
real estate unit from the settlement of a trade secret theft
lawsuit with Zillow Group. When it announced the settlement in
June, Zillow said the parties reached an "amicable resolution" and
that the agreement didn't contain any admission of liability,
wrongdoing or responsibility.
Factoring out the settlement, restructuring charges and other
special items, adjusted per-share earnings were 10 cents in the
fourth quarter, up from 8 cents a year ago. Analysts polled by
Thomson Reuters had expected total revenue of $2.06 billion in the
quarter and adjusted earnings of 13 cents a share.
The news and information services segment, which accounts for
roughly two-thirds of News Corp's total revenue, reported a 1% gain
in sales to $1.42 billion. Advertising revenue fell 5% in the unit.
Excluding the impact of foreign currency fluctuations and an
additional week in the quarter, ad revenue fell 7%, an improvement
from double-digit percentage declines in previous quarters.
"While global print ad trends remain challenging at our news and
information services segment, we are continuing our aggressive
growth in digital, which now accounts for 23% of segment revenues,
up from 19% last year," News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson
said in prepared remarks.
Revenue in News Corp's book publishing segment rose 11% to $433
million because of strong sales of "The Nest" by Cynthia D'Aprix
Sweeney, "The Rainbow Comes and Goes" by Anderson Cooper and "The
World's Worst Children" by David Walliams.
Meanwhile, the small-but-growing digital real-estate business
reported a 21% gain in revenue to $229 million.
Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 08, 2016 17:39 ET (21:39 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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