John Wiley & Sons

Company Information & Key Figures

About

John Wiley & Sons was founded in 1807. Beginning in fiscal year 2013, the company initiated the “Restructuring and Reinvestment Program”. As a result, the company has revised its segments into three new reporting segments: Through the Research segment, the company provides scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, as well as related content and services, to academic, corporate, and government libraries, learned societies, and individual researchers and other professionals. The Publishing segment provides scientific, professional, and education books and related content in print and digital formats, as well as test preparation services and course workflow tools, to libraries, corporations, students, professionals, and researchers. The Solutions segment provides online program management services for higher education institutions and learning, development, and assessment services for businesses and professionals. John Wiley & Sons operations are primarily located in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore and Australia.

• June 1, 2015 Mark Allin followed Stephen M. Smith as president and CEO – Oct. 2015, Matthew S. Kissner followed Peter B. Wiley as Chairman of the Board

Analysis & Key Developments

Update: In fiscal 2018, reported revenues at John Wiley & Sons increased by 5% to 1,796.1mUSD. Besides, the company’s net income totaled to 192,2mUSD. (AR 2018)

Financial

For fiscal year 2017, John Wiley & Sons delivered revenues of 1,718.5mUSD, against 1,727mUSD in 2016. Revenues would have been up 2% excluding the adverse impact of foreign exchange. The performance was driven by the favorable impact of the shift to time-based Journal Subscriptions of 34mUSD and a partial year contribution from the Atypon acquisition of 19mUSD. Moreover publishing revenue by product type in 2017 included: STM and Professional Books (46%), Education Books (31%), Online Test Preparation and Certification (6%), Course Workflow (10%) and Licensing, Distribution, Advertising and Other (7%). (AR 2017)

• Research revenue for the fiscal year 2017 progressed by 3% to 853,5mUSD, or 7% excluding the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange. The increase was mainly driven by journal subscriptions; incremental revenue from the recent acquisition of Atypon; and author-funded access growth, partially offset by the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange and a decline in licensing, reprints, backfiles and other. (AR 2017)

• Solutions revenue for the fiscal year 2017 increased by 13% to 231,6mUSD, or 14% excluding the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange. (AR 2017)

• The revenue of Wiley’s Publishing segment for the fiscal year 2017 decreased by 9% to 633,4mUSD million. The decline was due to lower demand for books and reference materials (61mUSD) and the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange translation, partially offset by growth in course workflow; online test preparation and certification; and licensing, distribution, advertising and other. (AR 2017)

Internal organization

• Beginning in the fiscal year 2013, the company initiated the “Restructuring and Reinvestment Program”. As a result, John Wiley & Sons has revised its segments into three new reporting segments comprised of Research (journals and related content and services), Publishing (books and related content, course workflow, and test preparation) and Solutions (online program management, corporate learning, and professional assessment). (AR 2017)
• In October 2017, John Wiley & Son announced that Brian A. Napack has been named President and CEO, effective December 4. Mr. Napack succeeds Matthew Kissner, who has served as interim CEO since May during the same year. (PR 17.10.2017)

Acquisition

• In August 2016 John Wiley & Sons acquired Atypon, a Silicon Valley-based publishing software company, in a 120mUSD cash deal. (BS 19.08.2016) Atypon’s Literatum platform hosts nearly 9,000 journals, 13m journal articles, and more than 1,800 publication websites for over 1,500 societies and publishers. (company information)
• In September 2016 the company bought Ranku, an edtech start-up from Seattle. (BS 19.09.2016) Ranku licenses recruitment technology and predictive analytics to Universities and State Systems to scale online degree enrollment. (company information)

Divestment

• As of April 30, 2017, following the outsourcing of Wiley’S US-based book distribution operations to Cengage Learning in 2016, the company has only one global warehousing and distribution facility remaining which is in the United Kingdom. (AR 2017)

International

The company’s publications and services are sold throughout most of the world. Wiley’s operations outside the US are located in Australia, Canada, UK, Germany, Singapore, Russia, India, and China. Furthermore, the company operates businesses in Brazil, Denmark, Dubai, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan. All operations market their indigenous publications, as well as publications produced by other publishing locations of the company. Revenue from external customers based on the location of the customer and long-lived assets by geographic area during 2017 were as follows: 787mUSD from the US, 189mUSD from the UK, 75mUSD from Germany, 63mUSD Japan, 40mUSD from China, 34mUSD from India, 66mUSD from Australia, 45mUSD from France, 51mUSD from Canada and 369mUSD from other countries. (AR 2017)

Digital

During fiscal 2017, Wiley’s revenue from digital products and services accounted for 68% of total revenue, up from 63% in the prior year. The company’s book content is mainly available online through the platforms Wiley Online Library, WileyPLUS, Wiley Custom Select and others. Digital books are delivered to intermediaries including Amazon, Apple and Google, as well as to libraries through aggregators. Moreover, Wiley serves the academic market with specialized formats for digital textbooks and digital book collections are sold by subscription through independent third-party aggregators servicing distinct communities. (AR 2017)