John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE:WLY) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call March 9, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Brian Napack - President, CEO & Director

Christina Van Tassell - EVP & CFO

Brian Campbell - VP, IR

Conference Call Participants

Daniel Moore - CJS Securities

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Wiley's Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to introduce Wiley's Vice President of Investor Relations, Brian Campbell. Please go ahead.

Brian Campbell

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. Joining me today are: Brian Napack, Wiley's President and CEO; and Christina Van Tassell, Executive Vice President, and CFO.

A few notes to start. Our comments and responses to your questions reflect management's views as of today and will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those statements. The company does not undertake any obligation to update them to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Also, Wiley provides non-GAAP measures as a supplement to evaluate underlying operating profitability and performance trends. These measures do not have standardized meanings prescribed by U.S. GAAP and therefore may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies, nor should they be viewed as alternatives to measures under GAAP. Unless otherwise noted, we will refer to non-GAAP metrics on the call, and variances are on a year-over-year basis and will exclude the impact of currency. Additional information is included in our filings with the SEC. A copy of this presentation and transcript will be available on our Investor Relations web page at investors.wiley.com.

I'll now turn the call over to Brian Napack.

Brian Napack

Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us. First, I'll state the obvious. Wiley's Q3 results and revised full year outlook are simply not what we expect to deliver to our shareholders. As you know, we've been navigating a mix of unpredictable macro and market-specific headwinds. High inflation, low consumer confidence, a tight job market and ongoing geopolitical disruption have all taken a toll. And in our markets, we've seen demand pressure in education, driven by lower consumer spending in university enrollment.

Our results in Research were challenged unexpectedly this quarter by our decision to pause Publishing in a high-growth part of Hindawi, which I'll talk about later. All of these dynamics contributed to our revenue and earnings underperformance.

Absent the pause in Hindawi, Wiley's core growth engines of Research and Talent remains strong. For the quarter, Research revenue, excluding Hindawi, was up 2.4%. Our strategies remain tightly aligned with the trends driving the knowledge economy, and we're making good progress in executing them.