John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.04 EPS

John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday. The company reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.40 by $0.04, Briefing.com reports. John Wiley & Sons had a net margin of 13.22% and a return on equity of 29.01%. The firm had revenue of $386.36 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $380.20 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.49 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.6% on a year-over-year basis.

John Wiley & Sons Stock Down 2.2%

WLY stock opened at $51.24 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $2.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.11 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.51. John Wiley & Sons has a 1-year low of $28.38 and a 1-year high of $57.45. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $51.43 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $43.36.

John Wiley & Sons Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 23rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, July 7th were given a $0.3575 dividend. This represents a $1.43 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, July 7th. This is a positive change from John Wiley & Sons’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.35. John Wiley & Sons’s dividend payout ratio is currently 33.81%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings raised shares of John Wiley & Sons from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of John Wiley & Sons from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, May 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy”.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of WLY. Lido Advisors LLC grew its holdings in John Wiley & Sons by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Lido Advisors LLC now owns 5,513 shares of the company’s stock valued at $223,000 after buying an additional 298 shares during the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 3.3% in the fourth quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 11,321 shares of the company’s stock valued at $347,000 after buying an additional 361 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors increased its position in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 3.6% during the fourth quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 12,203 shares of the company’s stock valued at $374,000 after acquiring an additional 429 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in John Wiley & Sons by 519.8% during the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 564 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 473 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its stake in John Wiley & Sons by 1.1% during the third quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 45,288 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,833,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.94% of the company’s stock.

John Wiley & Sons Company Profile

John Wiley & Sons, Inc is a global publishing and educational services company founded in 1807 and headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company operates through two primary segments: Research & Publishing and Education. Through these segments, Wiley produces a wide range of scholarly journals, books, reference works and digital products for academic, scientific, technical and medical markets, as well as professional development and higher education learning resources.

In its Research & Publishing segment, Wiley publishes thousands of peer-reviewed journals and maintains the Wiley Online Library, a leading platform for scientific and scholarly content.