Company Exceeds Prior Year Operating Profit on Cost Reductions

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) today reported sales and earnings for its fiscal 2017 fourth quarter and full-year ended April 29, 2017.

Total sales were $821 million for the quarter and $3.9 billion for the full year, decreasing 6.3% and 6.5% over the prior year periods, respectively. Comparable store sales declined 6.3% for both the fourth quarter and full year. Online sales increased 2.9% for the quarter and 3.7% for the full year.

The consolidated fourth quarter net loss improved to $13.4 million, or $0.19 per share, compared to a loss of $30.6 million, or $0.42 per share, in the prior year. For the quarter, Retail generated an operating loss of $15.9 million, while NOOK incurred an operating loss of $7.9 million, for a total operating loss of $23.8 million.

Fiscal 2017 consolidated net earnings from continuing operations were $22.0 million, or $0.30 per share, compared to net earnings from continuing operations of $14.7 million, or $0.05 per share, in the prior year. For the full year, Retail generated operating income of $90.7 million, while NOOK incurred an operating loss of $36.4 million, for a total operating income of $54.3 million.

In addition to exceeding prior year operating results, excluding non-recurring charges in both years, consolidated EBITDA was $187.2 million in fiscal 2017, in-line with guidance of $180 million to $190 million, versus $185.7 million last year.

For the full year, consolidated EBITDA was $172.2 million, as compared to $150.5 million a year ago. NOOK EBITDA losses decreased $47.3 million to $17.3 million, as the Company continued to rationalize NOOK expenses. Retail EBITDA of $189.5 million declined $25.6 million, primarily due to the sales decline.

“While fiscal 2017 proved to be a challenging year for the company, we reduced costs by $137 million, enabling us to sustain our profitability level,” said Demos Parneros, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. “In fiscal 2018, we are focusing on ways to improve the business and reignite sales through an aggressive test and learn process and companywide simplification process that will take out costs.”

The company ended the fiscal year with $64.9 million of debt under its $750 million credit facility. During fiscal 2017, the Company returned $67 million in cash to its shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

Outlook

For fiscal year 2018, the Company expects comparable bookstore sales to decline in the low single digits and full year consolidated EBITDA to be approximately $180 million.

Conference Call

A conference call with Barnes & Noble, Inc.’s senior management will be webcast beginning at 10:00 A.M. ET on Thursday, June 22, 2017, and is accessible at investors.barnesandnobleinc.com.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. will report fiscal 2018 first quarter results on or about September 7, 2017.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) is the nation’s largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company operates 633 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK® tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store®. The NOOK Store features more than 4.5 million digital books in the US (www.nook.com), plus periodicals and comics, and offers the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps™ available for Android™, iOS® and Windows®.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting the Company’s corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.