Scholastic Posts Decline in Fourth Quarter Results

August 1, 2004
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MAIN NEWS HEADLINES

August 1-15, 2004 Edition

Scholastic Posts

Decline in Fourth

Quarter Results

NEW YORK, NY/07/21/04Scholastic Corp., one of the largest children’s book publishers, on July 21 posted a decline in quarterly profits, in the midst of restructuring its struggling direct-to-home book sales unit.

Net profit fell from $28.7 million for last year’s fourth quarter to $22.5 million in this fiscal fourth quarter.

The 83-year-old publishing house has suffered from recent the U.S. government’s recent “Do Not Call” legislation which forbids unsolicited marketing telephone calls to American’s households. Scholastic publishes more than 750 titles per year, including the phenomenally successful branding publishing properties Harry Potter® and Captain Underpants®, the beloved series Clifford The Big Red Dog®, I Spy, and Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus®, as well as licensed properties such as Barney®, Star Wars® and Scooby Doo. Scholastic recently reached an agreement to publish all novelizations, coloring and activity books, picture and storybooks based on DreamWorks’ next five animated films, including Shrek 2.

Its distribution businesses, including book clubs, direct-to-home and book fairs, reaches 35 million children, 40 million parents and nearly every school in the U.S.

Scholastic is a $2 billion multimedia company with 10,000 employees operating globally in education, entertainment and publishing businesses marketing to children, parents and teachers. Scholastic is a publicly held company that trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SCHL.