Barnes & Noble Booksellers Nominate 18 Books to Compete for the Barnes & Noble Children’s & Young Adult Book Awards

For the first quarter, net sales were $540.9 million compared to $388.0 million in last year's first quarter. This 39.4% improvement primarily reflects a comparable sales increase of 40.6%, partially offset by 29 permanent store closures since last year's first quarter. The 40.6% comparable sales improvement was driven by an increase in transaction count and higher average dollar sale. Gross margin was $216.6 million, or 40.0% of net sales, compared to $126.8 million, or 32.7% of net sales, in last year's first quarter. The 730-basis point improvement in gross margin rate primarily reflects higher average unit retail and full price sales combined with occupancy leverage that offset elevated raw material and freight costs. At the end of the first quarter, inventories totaled $325.6 million compared to $209.7 million at the end of last year's first quarter. The $115.9 million, or 55.3%, increase from last year's first quarter primarily reflects elevated on-hand inventories to align with higher consumer demand, an increase in in-transit inventories due to extended in-transit times in the global supply chain, strategic investments in basics and replenishment inventories, and higher average unit costs.

(subscription required) Holiday book buying kicked into high gear last week, with unit sales of print books jumping 44.3% over the week ended November 29, 2020, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. The smallest gain in the week came in young adult fiction, where sales increased 31.2%, whereas the biggest jump was in young adult nonfiction, which had an 86.8% increase. In general, the sales boost came from higher sales of existing titles. For example, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, last year's Barnes & Noble book of the year, saw sales skyrocket to about 138,000 copies last week from just over 14,000 copies in the previous week. Holiday favorite How the Grinch Stole Christmas had a 77% sales jump in the week, with sales nearing 52,000 copies sold.

S&P Global today reported third quarter 2020 results with revenue of $1,846 million, an increase of 9% compared to the same period last year. Net income decreased 26% to $455 million and diluted earnings per share decreased 25% to $1.88 primarily due to the debt tender premium and fees associated with the recent senior notes tender offer. "S&P Global has a collection of strong and resilient businesses that continued to perform well in the current environment. The demand for our ratings, benchmarks, research, data, and analytics is greater than ever during uncertain and volatile markets," said Douglas L. Peterson, President and Chief Executive Officer of S&P Global. "Two years ago, we established a number of growth initiatives. It is very encouraging to see so many of these investments result in new products that we have launched this year. This is particularly true with our ESG investments and the traction that our new ESG products are gaining in the marketplace."