Scholastic Corp. (SCHL-NASDAQ) made an announcement after Friday’s close that the company was starting a $200 million accelerated share buyback plan via Deutsche Bank. The company expects to repurchase an estimated 14% of its currently outstanding common stock.
It looks like the company is using all of its Harry Potter profits to buyback and retire its stock, so in a sense the publisher is having Harry Potter user his allowance buy stock in Scholastic Corp. The stock closed up 2% at $32.51 on Friday and was basically unchanged in after-hours trading. The 52-week trading range is $24.99 to $37.08.
Amazon.com announced that it has already secured 1 Million pre-orders on May 8 for the last Harry Potter novel called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Amazon has reduced its price from $18.99 to $17.99, which is supposed to be a 49% discount. This was after 95 days of pre-orders, and Amazon said it took 174 days for the sixth Harry Potter book.
So, Scholastic is already counting its chips. Does anyone really believe that this will be the last Harry Potter novel?
Jon C. Ogg
June 2, 2007
Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
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