Revenue down at academic and legal bookseller

JOHN Smith & Son, the academic and professional bookseller, has seen sales fall 6.2 per cent to £38 million with pre-tax profit of £41,000, down from £214,222.

The Glasgow-based company has two divisions focusing on the higher education market, John Smith’s – which has stores within campuses across the UK; and JS International – a Botswanabased business which operates in the same field. Its Hammicks business is a specialist provider of books to the UK legal professional.

Writing in accounts newly filed at Companies House, the directors said the higher education market was experiencing “no to low growth” after a period of sustained growth.

Book sales grew 4.5 per cent in the year to May 31 2016 , with e-books growing 75 per cent to account for 17 per cent of all book sale as the company worked to reduce its exposure to lower margin products.

In spite of this, overall sales in the division fell by 8.3 per cent after a decline in the number of students served by Aspire scheme, managed by John Smith, which is a form of cashless bursary that provides books to students.

The international business increased by one per cent on a constant currency basis.

In its legal business, where Hammicks supplies the Ministry of Justice, revenue was flat, but up 12.3 per cent on a like-for-like basis following the closure of its retail operations in 2015.

The directors said the group remained in a strong position to “not only participate in the changing landscape in [our] core markets but to be an agent for that change”.