News Corp (NWS,NWSA) on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter net loss to common stockholders of $379 million or $0.65 per share, compared with a profit of $12 million or $0.02 per share past year.
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By far and away the largest division is News and Information Services, which includes Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, newspapers such as the New York Post, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail and Herald Sun and the UK’s The Sun and The Times. The company had revenue of $2.14 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.19 billion. Last quarter, News Corporation (NASDAQ:NWS) posted earnings per share of $0.05 for the period ended 2015-03-31.
ROMANCE books have given an earnings boost to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, but problems at its US digital education business have weighed on the media giant’s bottom line.
News Corp.is in the “final phase” of talks to sell its Amplify Inc. education unit, Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson said. Still, Singh said sales of the curriculum had been “much slower to develop than we initially expected”.
Class A shares of News Corp. have fallen 10 percent in 2015 and closed at $14.12 on Wednesday. That group’s overall sales dropped 10 percent year over year, while Cable revenue slipped 2 percent. In June, the Journal said that it would reduce staff and eliminate some positions, as well as introduce a global edition for readers in Europe and Asia. However, increased revenues at its Book Publishing division and Digital Real Estate Services segment provided some cushion. Revenue rose 1 percent to $8.63 billion. In September, News Corp agreed to buy the owner of Realtor.com for $950 million.
Amplify was supposed to help News Corp. take advantage of growth in the market for digital education, which is gradually replacing print textbooks. Adjusted revenue (excluding the impact of acquisitions and foreign currency fluctuations) edged down 1% year over year. Both underperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which rose 30 percent in the period.
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Publisher News Corp has reported a financial year loss of US$149m ($201.7m) amid various write-downs and impairment costs, including a US$371m non-cash write-down the value of its struggling education business Amplify.
