A Year for the (Record) Books in Publishing (publishersweekly.com)

Adobe announced that its board of directors has approved a new stock repurchase authorization, granting the company authority to repurchase up to $25 billion in common stock through March 14, 2028. Under the program, which is designed to return value to Adobe’s stockholders, minimize dilution from stock issuances, and reduce share count over time, the company may repurchase shares in the open market and enter into structured repurchase agreements with third parties. “Our new $25 billion share repurchase authorization underscores what a special company Adobe is, with the profitability and cash flows to drive growth and invest in innovation while returning significant capital to our shareholders,” said Dan Durn, executive vice president and CFO, Adobe.

The United States Postal Service reported new service delivery performance metrics showing ongoing strong service for First-Class Mail and Marketing Mail, with a slight decline for Periodicals through the first 12 weeks of the fiscal first quarter. Since Thanksgiving, the Postal Service has accepted 11.1 billion pieces of mail and packages for delivery and anticipates it will deliver more than 12 billion pieces of mail and packages by New Year’s Day. First quarter-to-date service performance scores covering the period Oct. 1 through Dec. 24 included: *First-Class Mail: 89.8 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 1.24 percentage points from the fourth quarter. *Marketing Mail: 91.7 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a slight decrease of .73 percent from the fourth quarter. *Periodicals: 81.2 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 1.57 percent from the fourth quarter. *Overall, the average number of days to deliver a mailpiece across the network was 2.7 days.

As you are most likely aware, the packaging industry and much of North America has faced significant shipping and logistics challenges over the past several months. Several factors such as demand for freight services outstripping the number of trucks on the road, inclement weather conditions, and the implementation of the new Electronic Logging Device (ELD) regulations in December 2017, have collectively compounded the issue of imbalance in the truck and driver supply. The ELD mandate will have an impact on freight costs. Most carriers that have implemented ELDs have reported productivity decreases of approximately 15% with fewer miles driven per day. It is also expected that some capacity may be taken out of the market due to the rising costs. The net result of all of this is high load to carrier ratios driving up freight rates which often change with little notice. Click Read More below for additional information.