Costco Wholesale Corporation Reports August Sales Results

HarperCollins Publishers announced several executive-level personnel changes. Suzanne Murphy, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, will be leaving the company to pursue other interests. Liate Stehlik has been promoted to President and Publisher, Morrow Group and HarperCollins Children’s Books, adding the Children’s division to her purview. Dan Schwartz has been promoted to EVP, CFO and Head of North American Operations. Matt Bennett, Global Chief Information Officer, has been appointed to the company’s global executive committee, now reporting to Schwartz. Zandra Magariño, SVP, Chief People Officer, will expand her role to include oversight of real estate, as well as employee health, safety, and security. Brian Murray, President and CEO, HarperCollins Publishers, said, “Earlier this year, we launched a transformation effort to identify new ways to work smarter and more efficiently across North America and globally. To that end, we are clarifying and consolidating our executive leadership team. This new structure will allow us to implement key publishing, systems, and operational changes to confront current challenges and seize existing opportunities in our rapidly evolving industry.”

After a federal judge blocked key parts of SF 496, Iowa’s anti-LGBTQ book banning law, last December, five more publishers—including all four remaining Big Five publishers—have now joined Penguin Random House on the joint lawsuit against the state as plaintiffs, to help defend against the state’s bid to lift the block on appeal. In a release this week, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks announced that they have joined the initial plaintiffs, which included PRH, the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), four renowned authors (Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, Malinda Lo, and Jodi Picoult), and a group of teachers and students. “We as publishers are uniting in our unwavering commitment to stand with educators, librarians, students, authors, and readers against the unconstitutional censorship measures being imposed by the state of Iowa," the publishers said in a joint statement.

Net sales for the quarter increased 14.7 percent, to $43.89 billion, from $38.26 billion last year. Net sales for the first 24 weeks increased 15.8 percent, to $86.23 billion, from $74.49 billion last year. Net income for the quarter was $951 million, or $2.14 per diluted share, which includes $246 million pretax, or $0.41 per diluted share, in costs incurred primarily from COVID-19 premium wages. Last year’s second quarter net income was $931 million, or $2.10 per diluted share. Net income for the first 24 weeks was $2.12 billion, or $4.76 per diluted share, compared to $1.77 billion, or $4.00 per diluted share, last year. For the four-week reporting month of February, ended February 28, 2021, the Company reported net sales of $14.05 billion, an increase of 15.2 percent from $12.20 billion last year. For the twenty-six week period ended February 28, 2021, net sales were $93.16 billion, an increase of 15.4 percent from $80.76 billion last year.