WLYB
John Wiley SonsCDocument history
Earnings documents stored for WLYB.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-09-03John Wiley & Sons (WLY) Beats Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates
Zacks
John Wiley & Sons (WLY) Beats Q1 Earnings and Revenue Estimates
John Wiley & Sons (WLY) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.44 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.4 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.49 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +10.00%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this publisher would post earnings of $1.65 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.67, delivering a surprise of +1.21%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. John Wiley & Sons, which belongs to the Zacks Publishing - Books industry, posted revenues of $386.36 million for the quarter ended July 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.62%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $396.8 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. John Wiley & Sons shares have added about 66.7% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12%. While John Wiley & Sons has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for John Wiley & Sons was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Za…Read full documentShow less
John Wiley & Sons (WLY) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.44 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.4 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.49 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +10.00%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this publisher would post earnings of $1.65 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.67, delivering a surprise of +1.21%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. John Wiley & Sons, which belongs to the Zacks Publishing - Books industry, posted revenues of $386.36 million for the quarter ended July 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.62%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $396.8 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. John Wiley & Sons shares have added about 66.7% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12%. While John Wiley & Sons has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for John Wiley & Sons was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $1.30 on $450.8 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $4.80 on $1.76 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Publishing - Books is currently in the bottom 3% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. One other stock from the same industry, Scholastic (SCHL), is yet to report results for the quarter ended August 2026. This publishing, education and media company is expected to post quarterly loss of $3.40 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -34.9%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. Scholastic's revenues are expected to be $224.69 million, down 0.4% from the year-ago quarter. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (WLY) : Free Stock Analysis Report Scholastic Corporation (SCHL) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-09-03John Wiley & Sons Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
John Wiley & Sons Q1 Earnings Call Highlights
Interested in John Wiley & Sons, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Research publishing and AI offerings drove growth: Research publishing revenue rose 12%, while Wiley generated $14 million in AI revenue and expanded partnerships and licensing agreements. However, results faced a $29 million prior-year AI licensing comparison. Emerald integration is progressing ahead of schedule: The acquisition contributed $13 million in publishing revenue and $5 million in adjusted EBITDA, with Wiley targeting $30 million in annual cost synergies by the third year. Learning remained weak, but full-year guidance was reaffirmed: Learning revenue fell 20% and adjusted EBITDA margins declined sharply amid softer academic and professional demand. Wiley maintained its fiscal 2027 outlook for low-to-mid-single-digit organic revenue growth, adjusted EPS of $4.60–$5.05, and $205 million in free cash flow. John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) said its first-quarter fiscal 2027 performance met its internal plan as growth in research publishing and artificial intelligence-related offerings was offset by a difficult comparison with the prior year and continued weakness in learning markets. CEO Matt Kissner said the company generated $14 million in AI revenue during the quarter, while research publishing revenue increased 12%. However, the prior-year quarter included $29 million in AI licensing revenue, creating a significant year-over-year comparison headwind. Learning revenue also declined amid softer professional-market demand and a seasonally smaller academic period. → Boarding Call: EHang Secures First-Mover Altitude “Nothing in the quarter changes our full-year expectations,” Kissner said, adding that Wiley’s research content and data assets are increasingly being used in AI-driven scientific and corporate research applications. Research revenue was $293 million, up 4% from the prior-year period. Research Publishing revenue rose 12%, including a $13 million contribution from Emerald Publishing, which Wiley acquired during the quarter. Excluding Emerald, publishing revenue grew about 6%, according to CFO Craig Albright. → Medtronic’s Stars Are Aligning for a Price Recovery Research Solutions revenue declined 30%, largely because of the prior-year AI licensing comparison. Softer publishing services and recruiting activity also weighed on the segment, though advertising revenue grew…Read full documentShow less
Interested in John Wiley & Sons, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Research publishing and AI offerings drove growth: Research publishing revenue rose 12%, while Wiley generated $14 million in AI revenue and expanded partnerships and licensing agreements. However, results faced a $29 million prior-year AI licensing comparison. Emerald integration is progressing ahead of schedule: The acquisition contributed $13 million in publishing revenue and $5 million in adjusted EBITDA, with Wiley targeting $30 million in annual cost synergies by the third year. Learning remained weak, but full-year guidance was reaffirmed: Learning revenue fell 20% and adjusted EBITDA margins declined sharply amid softer academic and professional demand. Wiley maintained its fiscal 2027 outlook for low-to-mid-single-digit organic revenue growth, adjusted EPS of $4.60–$5.05, and $205 million in free cash flow. John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) said its first-quarter fiscal 2027 performance met its internal plan as growth in research publishing and artificial intelligence-related offerings was offset by a difficult comparison with the prior year and continued weakness in learning markets. CEO Matt Kissner said the company generated $14 million in AI revenue during the quarter, while research publishing revenue increased 12%. However, the prior-year quarter included $29 million in AI licensing revenue, creating a significant year-over-year comparison headwind. Learning revenue also declined amid softer professional-market demand and a seasonally smaller academic period. → Boarding Call: EHang Secures First-Mover Altitude “Nothing in the quarter changes our full-year expectations,” Kissner said, adding that Wiley’s research content and data assets are increasingly being used in AI-driven scientific and corporate research applications. Research revenue was $293 million, up 4% from the prior-year period. Research Publishing revenue rose 12%, including a $13 million contribution from Emerald Publishing, which Wiley acquired during the quarter. Excluding Emerald, publishing revenue grew about 6%, according to CFO Craig Albright. → Medtronic’s Stars Are Aligning for a Price Recovery Research Solutions revenue declined 30%, largely because of the prior-year AI licensing comparison. Softer publishing services and recruiting activity also weighed on the segment, though advertising revenue grew. Research adjusted EBITDA increased 9% to $87 million, and the segment’s adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 130 basis points to 29.6%. Albright attributed the improvement to Emerald’s contribution and organic cost savings initiatives. → Dutch Bros Sell-Off Creates a Growth Opportunity Wiley said research publishing demand remained strong, with submissions rising 31% and publishing output increasing 8%. The company also reported customer retention above 99% following its calendar 2026 journal renewal season. The company is integrating Emerald ahead of schedule, management said. Emerald added $5 million of adjusted EBITDA during the quarter at a margin above the research segment average. Wiley expects the acquisition to deliver the full $30 million in targeted cost synergies by its third year, with the bulk of those savings expected in year two. Kissner said Emerald also broadens Wiley’s content portfolio in economics, business and finance, supporting its licensing and data analytics strategy. Wiley said it remains on track to exceed $50 million in AI revenue in fiscal 2027 and expects recurring AI revenue to grow two to three times from the prior year. Of the $14 million of AI revenue recognized in the first quarter, $10.5 million came from model-training arrangements and $3.5 million was recurring revenue. The company has contracted another $14 million in AI licensing revenue for recognition across the second and third quarters, with additional agreements under discussion. Albright cautioned that licensing arrangements can be variable or “lumpy,” though he said current revenue phasing is similar to last year’s pattern after the unusually large first-quarter comparison. Wiley expanded its customer base for subscription knowledge feeds to 23 customers across five verticals: life sciences, healthcare, food and agriculture, materials and chemistry, and financial services. Its Wiley AI Knowledge Nexus licensing service now includes 71 society and publishing partners. During the quarter, Wiley was invited to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, a public-private effort intended to apply AI to scientific and technology challenges. Wiley said it was the sole scientific publisher participating and will provide research intelligence tools to researchers across DOE national laboratories. The company also became a founding data partner in CuspAI’s Global Materials Foundry. CuspAI licensed access to Wiley’s materials-science content to train its platform, which focuses on materials discovery for semiconductors, clean energy and advanced manufacturing. Wiley also launched its Spectral Analysis API portfolio for corporate and academic laboratories. The offering is designed to deliver chemical reference data into laboratory software workflows. Learning revenue declined 20% to $93 million. Academic revenue fell 20% to $45 million, reflecting $8 million of prior-year AI licensing revenue and lower print sales, partly offset by growth in digital content and courseware. Professional revenue declined 20% to $48 million, including a $5 million prior-year AI licensing comparison, softer consumer demand in retail and weaker corporate demand for assessments. Excluding the AI comparison, learning revenue declined just under 10%, Albright said. Learning adjusted EBITDA was $14 million, with margin falling to 15.1% from 27.4% a year earlier, reflecting lower revenue and product mix. Management said the retail business faced the most difficult comparison of the year following inventory reductions through the Amazon channel in late August of the prior year. Albright said industry retail unit sales declined at the same rate as Wiley’s, characterizing the pressure as market-wide. Wiley expects retail inventories to normalize as the year progresses. It also expects courseware and inclusive access offerings to continue growing and assessments performance to improve. The company is concentrating its editorial list on higher-performing titles, investing in digital and inclusive-access channels, and pursuing cost reductions to protect margins. Wiley reaffirmed its fiscal 2027 outlook, including organic revenue growth of low-to-mid-single digits and mid-single-digit organic growth in research. Organic growth excludes the expected $78 million contribution from Emerald over 11 months of the fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.5% to 27.5%, compared with 26.2% in fiscal 2026. Adjusted earnings per share of $4.60 to $5.05, compared with $4.19 in fiscal 2026, including roughly $0.10 from Emerald. Free cash flow of $205 million, up from $195 million in fiscal 2026. First-quarter adjusted EBITDA declined 4% and adjusted EPS fell 10%, partly reflecting higher interest expense associated with the Emerald acquisition. On a GAAP basis, Wiley posted a loss of $0.23 per share, compared with earnings of $0.22 per share a year earlier, primarily due to restructuring charges and acquisition and integration costs. The company raised its dividend for the 33rd consecutive year and returned $33 million to shareholders through dividends and repurchases during the quarter. 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. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "John Wiley & Sons Q1 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for September 2026.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-09-03John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Q1 2027 Earnings Call Summary
Moby
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Q1 2027 Earnings Call Summary
Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Research publishing momentum is driven by record submission levels, up 31%, and a widening scale advantage that management believes creates a structural moat for large-scale publishers. The 'Wiley Flywheel' strategy integrates proprietary research content with AI and data analytics, where publishing fuels AI training and AI tools subsequently increase researcher productivity. AI revenue growth is shifting toward a more favorable mix, with recurring revenue growing 2x to 3x over the prior year as the company expands beyond life sciences into chemistry and finance. The Emerald acquisition is performing ahead of schedule, providing immediate scale in business and finance disciplines while contributing to research margin expansion through early cost synergies. Management attributes the year-over-year revenue decline primarily to a $29 million prior-year AI licensing comparison and continued soft market conditions in professional learning. Strategic positioning in AI is focused on 'Responsible AI,' where Wiley differentiates itself by providing the high-quality, evidence-based knowledge required to make AI models reliable. Full-year AI revenue is on track to exceed $50 million, supported by $14 million already contracted for realization across the second and third quarters. Management expects research publishing to maintain mid-single-digit growth, supported by strong customer retention above 99% and record gold open access output. Technology transformation initiatives are shifting spend from legacy maintenance to product innovation, with a focus on retiring tech debt and consolidating facilities. The company anticipates a seasonal pickup in performance through the remainder of the year, following a seasonally light first quarter that carried the most difficult year-over-year comparisons. Long-term margin expansion is expected to be driven by the migration of 1.6 thousand journals to a unified research publishing platform and the implementation of an AI Center of Excellence. A GAAP EPS loss of $0.23 was primarily driven by restructuring charges and costs related to the integration of the Emerald acquisition. Net debt to EBITDA rose to 2.7x following the $450 million Emerald acquisition, though management notes pr…Read full documentShow less
Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Research publishing momentum is driven by record submission levels, up 31%, and a widening scale advantage that management believes creates a structural moat for large-scale publishers. The 'Wiley Flywheel' strategy integrates proprietary research content with AI and data analytics, where publishing fuels AI training and AI tools subsequently increase researcher productivity. AI revenue growth is shifting toward a more favorable mix, with recurring revenue growing 2x to 3x over the prior year as the company expands beyond life sciences into chemistry and finance. The Emerald acquisition is performing ahead of schedule, providing immediate scale in business and finance disciplines while contributing to research margin expansion through early cost synergies. Management attributes the year-over-year revenue decline primarily to a $29 million prior-year AI licensing comparison and continued soft market conditions in professional learning. Strategic positioning in AI is focused on 'Responsible AI,' where Wiley differentiates itself by providing the high-quality, evidence-based knowledge required to make AI models reliable. Full-year AI revenue is on track to exceed $50 million, supported by $14 million already contracted for realization across the second and third quarters. Management expects research publishing to maintain mid-single-digit growth, supported by strong customer retention above 99% and record gold open access output. Technology transformation initiatives are shifting spend from legacy maintenance to product innovation, with a focus on retiring tech debt and consolidating facilities. The company anticipates a seasonal pickup in performance through the remainder of the year, following a seasonally light first quarter that carried the most difficult year-over-year comparisons. Long-term margin expansion is expected to be driven by the migration of 1.6 thousand journals to a unified research publishing platform and the implementation of an AI Center of Excellence. A GAAP EPS loss of $0.23 was primarily driven by restructuring charges and costs related to the integration of the Emerald acquisition. Net debt to EBITDA rose to 2.7x following the $450 million Emerald acquisition, though management notes pro forma leverage remains within the target range of 1.5 to 2.5x. Learning segment challenges persist due to retail channel inventory normalization and softer consumer demand in professional assessments. The company raised its dividend for the 33rd consecutive year, emphasizing a commitment to shareholder returns despite ongoing business model transitions. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Management confirmed growth is in line with market leaders, supported by long-term market growth rates of 3% to 4%. Confidence in the mid-single-digit outlook is bolstered by record open access volume and the addition of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering to the portfolio. Management acknowledged that while licensing deals remain lumpy, they are building a more continuous recurring revenue stream in parallel. Phasing for the remainder of the year is expected to be more balanced compared to the significant prior-year first-quarter concentration. Described as a 'hidden gem,' this business grew from hundreds of thousands to $11 million last year and is expected to see another year of significant growth. The partnership with IQVIA is cited as a model for leveraging Wiley's proprietary instruments through large-scale third-party distribution channels. The toughest year-over-year comparisons regarding Amazon's inventory reductions occurred in August, suggesting trends should normalize moving forward. Growth in 'inclusive access' and digital courseware is expected to partially offset the ongoing softness in the professional trade publishing market.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-09-03John Wiley & Sons Inc (WLY) (Q1 2027) Earnings Call Highlights: AI Revenue Surges 40% Ahead ...
GuruFocus.com
John Wiley & Sons Inc (WLY) (Q1 2027) Earnings Call Highlights: AI Revenue Surges 40% Ahead ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Total Revenue: Research segment revenue was $293 million, up 4%; Learning segment revenue was $93 million, down 20%. Research Publishing Revenue: Increased 12%, with $13 million from Emerald and the balance from Open Access growth and AI licensing; excluding Emerald, publishing grew about 6%. Research Solutions Revenue: Declined 30%, almost entirely due to the prior year AI licensing comparison. Learning Revenue (Academic): $45 million, down 20%, with $8 million of prior year AI licensing and declines in print, offsetting growth in digital content and courseware. Learning Revenue (Professional): $48 million, down 20%, reflecting $5 million of prior year AI licensing, softer consumer demand in retail, and softer corporate demand in assessments. AI Revenue: $14 million in the quarter, with $10.5 million from model training and $3.5 million recurring; a further $14 million is contracted across Q2 and Q3. Adjusted EBITDA: Down 4% year-over-year; Research adjusted EBITDA was $87 million, up 9%, with margin up 130 basis points to 29.6%; Learning adjusted EBITDA was $14 million, with margin at 15.1% against 27.4%. Adjusted EPS: Down 10%, further impacted by higher net interest expense related to the Emerald acquisition. GAAP EPS: Loss of $0.23 compared to earnings of $0.22 in the prior year, largely due to restructuring charges and acquisition and integration costs. Free Cash Flow: Use of $70 million against a use of $100 million a year ago; full year outlook of $205 million is on track. Net Debt to EBITDA: 2.7 times on a trailing 12-month basis, against 1.9 times a year ago; pro forma leverage is 2.1 times including Emerald synergies. Capital Expenditures: $14 million against $15 million a year ago; full year CapEx expected to be approximately $80 million, up from $65 million. Dividends and Repurchases: Returned $33 million through dividends and repurchases; raised the dividend for the 33rd consecutive year. Emerald Contribution: Added $13 million to the top line and $5 million to adjusted EBITDA at a margin above the segment average; acquired for approximately $450 million net in cash at roughly 7 times adjusted EBITDA. Corporate Expenses (Adjusted EBITDA basis): $33 million in the quarter, down $8 million or 19%. Submissions: Up 31% year-over-year. Publishing Output: Up 8% year-over-year. Customer Retention: Remained abo…Read full documentShow less
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Total Revenue: Research segment revenue was $293 million, up 4%; Learning segment revenue was $93 million, down 20%. Research Publishing Revenue: Increased 12%, with $13 million from Emerald and the balance from Open Access growth and AI licensing; excluding Emerald, publishing grew about 6%. Research Solutions Revenue: Declined 30%, almost entirely due to the prior year AI licensing comparison. Learning Revenue (Academic): $45 million, down 20%, with $8 million of prior year AI licensing and declines in print, offsetting growth in digital content and courseware. Learning Revenue (Professional): $48 million, down 20%, reflecting $5 million of prior year AI licensing, softer consumer demand in retail, and softer corporate demand in assessments. AI Revenue: $14 million in the quarter, with $10.5 million from model training and $3.5 million recurring; a further $14 million is contracted across Q2 and Q3. Adjusted EBITDA: Down 4% year-over-year; Research adjusted EBITDA was $87 million, up 9%, with margin up 130 basis points to 29.6%; Learning adjusted EBITDA was $14 million, with margin at 15.1% against 27.4%. Adjusted EPS: Down 10%, further impacted by higher net interest expense related to the Emerald acquisition. GAAP EPS: Loss of $0.23 compared to earnings of $0.22 in the prior year, largely due to restructuring charges and acquisition and integration costs. Free Cash Flow: Use of $70 million against a use of $100 million a year ago; full year outlook of $205 million is on track. Net Debt to EBITDA: 2.7 times on a trailing 12-month basis, against 1.9 times a year ago; pro forma leverage is 2.1 times including Emerald synergies. Capital Expenditures: $14 million against $15 million a year ago; full year CapEx expected to be approximately $80 million, up from $65 million. Dividends and Repurchases: Returned $33 million through dividends and repurchases; raised the dividend for the 33rd consecutive year. Emerald Contribution: Added $13 million to the top line and $5 million to adjusted EBITDA at a margin above the segment average; acquired for approximately $450 million net in cash at roughly 7 times adjusted EBITDA. Corporate Expenses (Adjusted EBITDA basis): $33 million in the quarter, down $8 million or 19%. Submissions: Up 31% year-over-year. Publishing Output: Up 8% year-over-year. Customer Retention: Remained above 99% in the calendar 2026 general renewal season. Advanced Journal Portfolio: More than 30 journal titles with revenue of $70 million growing at strong double digits. Clinical Outcome Assessments Revenue: Q1 revenue rose by more than threefold year-over-year. Subscription Knowledge Feeds Customers: Expanded to 23 across five industry verticals. Nexus Licensing Service Partners: Total increased to 71. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Sign with WLY. Is WLY fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: September 03, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Research publishing revenue grew 12%, driven by strong global demand, record submissions (up 31%), and the addition of Emerald Publishing. AI revenue reached $14 million in Q1, ahead of pace for the full-year target of over $50 million, with an additional $14 million already contracted for Q2 and Q3. Research adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 130 basis points to 29.6%, driven by cost savings and the high-margin contribution from Emerald. The company was selected as the sole scientific publisher for the US Department of Energy's Genesis Mission and a founding data partner for CuspAI's materials foundry, validating its strategic position in the AI economy. The clinical outcome assessments business is growing rapidly, with Q1 revenue rising more than threefold, and the company launched its new spectral analysis API portfolio for laboratory markets. Customer retention in research remained above 99% following the calendar 2026 renewal season, and the company raised its dividend for the 33rd consecutive year. Total revenue declined due to a tough prior-year comparison of $29 million in AI licensing revenue, which was not repeated in Q1 of fiscal 2027. The Learning segment faced significant headwinds, with revenue down 20% due to soft market conditions in professional publishing and a prior-year AI licensing comparison. Adjusted EPS decreased 10% year-over-year, impacted by higher net interest expense related to the Emerald acquisition. GAAP EPS was a loss of $0.23, largely due to restructuring charges and acquisition and integration costs associated with the Emerald deal. The professional publishing market remains soft, with continued pressure from retail channel inventory normalization (e.g., Amazon) and weaker consumer demand. Free cash flow was a use of $70 million in Q1, and net debt to EBITDA rose to 2.7 times (1.9 times a year ago) due to the Emerald acquisition. Q: Organic revenue growth in research excluding AI revenue and Emerald was 5%. How does that compare to peers in the market overall, and how does that enhance your confidence in your mid-single-digit growth outlook for the business?A: Matt Kissner (CEO): We are growing along the same lines with the leaders in the market. Our confidence is driven by strong leading indicators and KPIs. While this is a seasonally slow quarter for that business, we have confidence in the full-year guidance because our signals are all quite strong. Craig Albright (CFO) added that the long-term market growth rate is in the 3% to 4% range, and Wiley is seeing similar trends, with momentum expected to build throughout the year. Q: Looking at Q2, remind us how much AI-related revenue you generated last year in Q2 and what your expectations are for this quarter?A: Craig Albright (CFO): In Q2 of last year, we generated around $6 million in AI revenue, with a similar number repeated in Q3 and Q4. We have already contracted for another $14 million of AI licensing revenue to be realized across Q2 and Q3 of this year. While these deals are lumpy, we see continued phasing in line with the prior year. Q: Can you talk about what you've seen so far at Emerald, since it's been about two months since the acquisition? Any surprises, good, bad, or otherwise?A: Matt Kissner (CEO): There are no surprises. It is a really good fit with our journal portfolio, and the signals are running all green. We are ahead of the pace we initially established. Craig Albright (CFO) added that the working relationship between the teams is positive, and they are on track to achieve the full run rate of $30 million in synergies by year three, running slightly ahead in the first year. Q: Can you provide a deeper dive into the recent partnerships, starting with IQVIA? Is that generating meaningful revenue, and what is a reasonable expectation?A: Matt Kissner (CEO): IQVIA is a terrific example of our partnership network enabling us to punch above our weight. It is a strategic partnership, not just a licensing deal, leveraging our clinical outcome assessments with their established distribution. Craig Albright (CFO) noted that clinical outcome assessments grew from hundreds of thousands of dollars to $11 million last year, and we are on the front end of something really big with another great year of growth expected. Q: How are things progressing with OpenEvidence, Anthropic, AWS, and others? How should we think about the revenue models and financial perspective for '27 and the next few years?A: Craig Albright (CFO): We are pleased with the early stages of the work with OpenEvidence, which was a $15 million agreement over 5 years. It is a modest add but a great example of commercial licensing. We continue to see promise of that expanding, though it is still early days. Matt Kissner (CEO) added that they have added more content to the agreement and that OpenEvidence's strong footprint in the US physician market creates a terrific opportunity to leverage our content for new revenue streams. Q: What was the impact of Amazon reducing inventories this quarter, and when do we cycle against that? Excluding print and digital books, what was the organic growth rate for the remaining learning businesses?A: Craig Albright (CFO): The significant reduction in inventory through the Amazon channel impacted the trade publishing area of the professional segment, with the toughest comparison occurring in late August. There has also been some softness in demand. However, the academic segment is very healthy, driven by digital content, courseware, and Inclusive Access. Assessments were light in Q1 but are expected to improve. We are managing the business with discipline, and trends should normalize against the prior year impacts. Q: How should we think about the cadence of top-line growth, margin expansion, and EPS for the year?A: Craig Albright (CFO): Q1 is a seasonally lighter quarter, and we see momentum build as we go throughout the year. We are reaffirming full-year guidance, consistent with a seasonally soft first quarter picking up in Q2, Q3, and Q4. Matt Kissner (CEO) added that the drivers are strong growth in the foundational research publishing business, with newer growth engines in AI and data analytics gaining traction later in the year, all underneath continuous margin improvement. Q: Can you elaborate on the recent partnerships with the US Department of Energy's Genesis Mission and CuspAI, and what role Wiley plays?A: Matt Kissner (CEO): Wiley was invited to be the sole scientific publisher in the DOE's Genesis Mission, a public-private partnership alongside NVIDIA, AWS, and Microsoft. Our role is substantive: we will make research intelligence tools available to researchers across all DOE National Laboratories and help shape the consortium's foundational knowledge layer. We also became a founding data partner for CuspAI's Materials Foundry, where CuspAI has licensed access to Wiley's material science content to train their platform, underscoring how our content is being integrated into AI systems driving scientific discovery. Q: What is the current state of the AI revenue pipeline, and how is the mix shifting between model training and recurring revenue?A: Matt Kissner (CEO): In Q1, we realized $14 million of AI revenue, ahead of the pace needed for our full-year target. Of that, $10.5 million is from model training and $3.5 million is recurring. We have contracted a further $14 million to be realized across Q2 and Q3. The mix is shifting the way we want, with recurring revenue growing 2 to 3 times over the prior year. We have expanded our corporate customer base for subscription knowledge feeds to 23 across five industry verticals. Q: Can you provide more detail on the margin expansion in the research segment and the cost savings initiatives?A: Craig Albright (CFO): Research adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 130 basis points to 29.6%, driven by the addition of Emerald and cost savings initiatives. Emerald added $5 million at a margin above the segment average. Most of the margin expansion was organic cost savings after continued investment in the advanced journal portfolio and clinical outcome assessments. Corporate expenses on an adjusted EBITDA basis came down 19%, building on the reduction from $166 million in fiscal '25 to $143 million in fiscal '26. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-09-03Wiley Reports First Quarter 2027 Results; Q1 in Line With Expectations and Full Year Outlook Reaffirmed
Business Wire
Wiley Reports First Quarter 2027 Results; Q1 in Line With Expectations and Full Year Outlook Reaffirmed
Strength in Research and AI offset by prior year comparison and softness in Learning – Emerald integration ahead of schedule HOBOKEN, N.J., September 03, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wiley (NYSE: WLY), a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning, today reported results for the first quarter ended July 31, 2026. First Quarter Summary GAAP performance vs. prior year: Revenue of $386 million vs. $397 million (-3%); Operating Income of $3 million vs. $31 million and Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS) of $(0.23) vs. $0.22 largely due to restructuring charges and acquisition and integration related costs. Adjusted Results at constant currency: Revenue of $386 million vs. $397 million (-3%), with growth in Research and contributions from the Emerald acquisition offset by prior year AI licensing revenue of $29 million and market-related softness in Learning. Adjusted Operating Income of $31 million (-9%), Adjusted EBITDA of $68 million (-4%), and Adjusted EPS of $0.44 (-10%) primarily due to revenue performance, with Adjusted EPS further impacted by higher net interest expense related to the acquisition. Research growth: Strong demand to publish and output trends continue. Revenue grew 4%, with Research Publishing up 12% (including two months from Emerald) offsetting a prior-year AI licensing comparison in Research Solutions. Adjusted EBITDA margin rose 130 basis points. AI and data analytics momentum: AI licensing revenue totaled $14 million for the quarter. The pipeline continues to expand across model training, commercial licensing, and subscription knowledge feeds. Wiley became the only scientific publisher in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission and a founding data partner in CuspAI’s materials foundry. Wiley also launched its breakthrough Spectral Analysis API portfolio in the quarter, delivering "gold standard" chemical reference data directly into automated laboratory software pipelines. Cost savings: Wiley’s continued focus on efficiency drove a 19% improvement ($8 million) in corporate expenses on an Adjusted EBITDA basis through technology transformation and restructuring. Returns to shareholders: The Company increased its dividend for the 33rd consecutive year and allocated $33 million to dividends and share repurchases this quarter. Management Commentary "We…Read full documentShow less
Strength in Research and AI offset by prior year comparison and softness in Learning – Emerald integration ahead of schedule HOBOKEN, N.J., September 03, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wiley (NYSE: WLY), a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning, today reported results for the first quarter ended July 31, 2026. First Quarter Summary GAAP performance vs. prior year: Revenue of $386 million vs. $397 million (-3%); Operating Income of $3 million vs. $31 million and Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS) of $(0.23) vs. $0.22 largely due to restructuring charges and acquisition and integration related costs. Adjusted Results at constant currency: Revenue of $386 million vs. $397 million (-3%), with growth in Research and contributions from the Emerald acquisition offset by prior year AI licensing revenue of $29 million and market-related softness in Learning. Adjusted Operating Income of $31 million (-9%), Adjusted EBITDA of $68 million (-4%), and Adjusted EPS of $0.44 (-10%) primarily due to revenue performance, with Adjusted EPS further impacted by higher net interest expense related to the acquisition. Research growth: Strong demand to publish and output trends continue. Revenue grew 4%, with Research Publishing up 12% (including two months from Emerald) offsetting a prior-year AI licensing comparison in Research Solutions. Adjusted EBITDA margin rose 130 basis points. AI and data analytics momentum: AI licensing revenue totaled $14 million for the quarter. The pipeline continues to expand across model training, commercial licensing, and subscription knowledge feeds. Wiley became the only scientific publisher in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission and a founding data partner in CuspAI’s materials foundry. Wiley also launched its breakthrough Spectral Analysis API portfolio in the quarter, delivering "gold standard" chemical reference data directly into automated laboratory software pipelines. Cost savings: Wiley’s continued focus on efficiency drove a 19% improvement ($8 million) in corporate expenses on an Adjusted EBITDA basis through technology transformation and restructuring. Returns to shareholders: The Company increased its dividend for the 33rd consecutive year and allocated $33 million to dividends and share repurchases this quarter. Management Commentary "We delivered the quarter we planned for, and the momentum between Research and AI keeps building: Research is fueling the trusted content that accelerates AI, and AI is driving the productivity that accelerates Research," said Matthew Kissner, President and CEO. "You can see it in our Research and AI pipelines, and in our selection as the only scientific publisher in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission and as founding data partner in CuspAI’s global materials foundry—choices that reflect not just our scale, but the quality and trust we’ve built over two centuries. Prior year AI licensing comparisons affected both segments this quarter, particularly Learning, and we expect improvement over the balance of the year as comparisons normalize and demand in that segment stabilizes." Financial Summary Please see accompanying financial tables for more detail. Research Segment Research revenue of $293 million was up 4% as reported and at constant currency, with Research Publishing up 12% (CC) largely driven by the addition of Emerald ($13 million in two months) and strong growth in gold open access and AI licensing. This was partially offset by a 30% decline (CC) in Research Solutions largely due to prior year AI licensing comparison ($16 million vs. $4 million this quarter). Research Adjusted EBITDA of $87 million was up 9% (CC) including a $5 million contribution from Emerald. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter rose 130 basis points to 29.6%. During the quarter, Wiley acquired Emerald Publishing for approximately $450 million in cash, net of cash acquired, or roughly 7 times Adjusted EBITDA on a synergized basis including $30 million of targeted cost synergies. Emerald brings nearly 500 journals, thousands of book titles and case studies, and 500,000 backfile assets. The acquisition expands Wiley's portfolio to roughly 2,500 journals and establishes a top-one-or-two position across key areas of economics, business, and finance. Learning Segment Learning revenue of $93 million was down 19% as reported and 20% (CC) reflecting prior year AI licensing comparison in Academic and Professional ($8 million and $5 million, respectively) and softness in consumer and corporate spending. Q1 is Wiley’s seasonally lightest quarter in Academic. Learning Adjusted EBITDA of $14 million was down 56% (CC) primarily reflecting revenue performance and mix. Corporate Expenses "Corporate Expenses" are the portion of shared services costs not allocated to segments. Corporate Expenses on an Adjusted EBITDA basis improved 19% ($8 million) as reported and at constant currency driven by technology transformation and continued restructuring savings. Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, and Capital Allocation Net Debt-to-EBITDA ratio (TTM) at quarter end was 2.7x compared to 1.9x in the year-ago period, reflecting higher net debt of $1,185 million vs. $746 million due to the June 1 acquisition of Emerald. Wiley’s proforma leverage is 2.1x including Emerald synergies. Net Cash Used in Operating Activities was $55 million compared to $85 million in the prior year, reflecting the anticipated recovery in cash collection related to late Q4 renewal signings. Note, Wiley’s regular use of cash in the first half of the fiscal year is driven by the timing of cash collections for annual journal renewals, which are concentrated in Q3 and Q4. Free Cash Flow was a use of $70 million compared to a use of $100 million in the prior year. Capex was $14 million, down $1 million. Returns to Shareholders: Wiley allocated $33 million toward dividends and share repurchases. $15 million was allocated to share repurchases, up from $14 million in the prior-year period, and the dividend was raised for the 33rd consecutive year. Fiscal 2027 Outlook Wiley is reaffirming its full year outlook based on key leading indicators, including strong pipelines in publishing and AI licensing, and anticipated cost savings. Organic Revenue Growth - driven by expected core growth in Research and another strong year for AI and data analytics growth initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA Margin – reflecting anticipated cost savings and ongoing efficiency gains balanced with high-return, sustainable growth investment. Adjusted EPS – growth expectation driven by higher expected Adjusted Operating Income Free Cash Flow – driven by expected cash earnings growth partially offset by year 1 dilution from Emerald ($15M), higher capex ($80M vs. $65M in FY26), expected restructuring costs, and higher cash taxes. Earnings Conference Call Scheduled for today, September 3 at 10:00 am (ET). Access webcast at Investor Relations at investors.wiley.com, or directly at http://events.q4inc.com/attendee/638218988. North American callers, please dial (833) 461-5787 and enter the meeting ID: 638 218 988. International callers, please dial (585) 542-9983 and enter the meeting ID: 638 218 988. About Wiley Wiley (NYSE: WLY) is a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning. With more than 200 years at the center of the scholarly ecosystem, Wiley combines trusted publishing heritage with AI-powered platforms to transform how knowledge is discovered, accessed, and applied. From individual researchers and students to Fortune 500 R&D teams, Wiley enables the transformation of scientific breakthroughs into real-world impact. From knowledge to impact—Wiley is redefining what's possible in science and learning. Visit us at Wiley.com and Investors.Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram Non-GAAP Financial Measures Wiley provides non-GAAP financial measures and performance results such as "Adjusted EPS," "Adjusted Operating Income," "Adjusted EBITDA," "Adjusted Income before Taxes," "Adjusted Income Tax Provision," "Adjusted Effective Income Tax Rate," "Free Cash Flow less Product Development Spending," "organic revenue," and results on a Constant Currency basis to assess underlying business performance and trends. Management believes non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude the impact of restructuring charges and credits and certain other items, and the impact of divestitures and acquisitions provide a useful comparable basis to analyze operating results and earnings. See the reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and explanations of the uses of non-GAAP measures in the supplementary information. We have not provided our 2027 outlook for the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures, as they are not available without unreasonable effort due to the high variability, complexity, and low visibility with respect to certain items, including restructuring charges and credits, acquisition and integration related costs, gains and losses on foreign currency, and other gains and losses. These items are uncertain, depend on various factors, and could be material to our consolidated results computed in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Forward-Looking Statements This release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning the Company's operations, performance, and financial condition. Reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, as actual results may differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements. Any such forward-looking statements are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that are inherently subject to uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of the Company and are subject to change based on many important factors. Such factors include, but are not limited to: (i) the level of investment in new technologies and products; (ii) subscriber renewal rates for the Company's journals; (iii) the financial stability and liquidity of journal subscription agents; (iv) the consolidation of book wholesalers and retail accounts; (v) the market position and financial stability of key online retailers; (vi) the seasonal nature of the Company's educational business and the impact of the used book market; (vii) worldwide economic and political conditions; (viii) the Company's ability to protect its copyrights and other intellectual property worldwide (ix) the ability of the Company to successfully integrate acquired operations and realize expected synergies and opportunities; (x) the ability to realize operating savings over time and in fiscal year 2027 in connection with our multiyear Global Restructuring Program and completed dispositions; (xi) cyber risk and the failure to maintain the integrity of our operational or security systems or infrastructure, or those of third parties with which we do business; (xii) as a result of acquisitions, we have and may record a significant amount of goodwill and other identifiable intangible assets and we may never realize the full carrying value of these assets; and (xiii) other factors detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events. Category: Corporate News/ Earnings Releases View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260903256667/en/ Contacts Brian CampbellInvestor [email protected] +201 748 6874
TranscriptFY2027 Q12026-09-03FY2027 Q1 earnings call transcript
Earnings source - 69 paragraphs
FY2027 Q1 earnings call transcript
Good morning, and welcome to Wiley's first quarter and fiscal 2027 earnings call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. At this time, I'd like to introduce Wiley's Vice President of Investor Relations, Brian Campbell. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. I am joined today by Matt Kissner, President and CEO, and Craig Albright, Executive Vice President and CFO. Our comments and responses reflect management 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. 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. 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 at investors.wiley.com. I will turn the call over to Matt Kissner.
Thank you, Brian, and hello everyone. Welcome to our Q1 earnings call. If fiscal 2026 was our breakout, then this is the year we build on that momentum and scale our new revenue streams. Q1 played out as we expected. Strong momentum in our research and AI growth engines was offset by a prior year AI comparison, which we previously mentioned, and continued soft market conditions in learning. Recall that Q1 is our seasonally smallest period, so our year-over-year comparisons carry some noise. However, nothing in the quarter changes our full-year expectations, which Craig will cover shortly. Wiley's trusted content and intelligence are the foundation for the rapid advancement of science and innovation worldwide. As I have stated before, when it comes to high-stakes scientific research, AI will only live up to its promise if it is fueled by current, accurate, and trusted content and data.
Wiley has one of the most comprehensive and continuously growing content and data portfolios in the world. You saw that validated twice this quarter in ways I would not have anticipated a year ago. We were invited to be the sole scientific publisher to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, and a founding data partner for CuspAI's Global Materials Foundry. In these endeavors, we stand alongside innovators like NVIDIA, AWS, Microsoft, and others. Behind those headlines, the commercial engine kept running. We signed new AI licensing agreements across multiple industries. I will walk you through the quarter and the momentum we are seeing in our growth engines, and Craig will take you through our financials and outlook. Let me start with the Q1 takeaways and a brief word on how our two growth engines work together.
Research is the foundation where our scale, brands, and society relationships enable us to generate proprietary content across a widening share of high-demand disciplines. AI and data analytics are built directly on top of that foundation, leveraging our content and data to create research tools for high-stakes R&D. The relationship runs both ways. Publishing fuels the AI and data analytics engine with a continuous flow of proprietary content, and AI powers the researcher productivity that increases the flow of publishing. That is the Wiley flywheel. A few highlights from the quarter. We delivered a 12% increase in research publishing, reflecting strong global demand to publish with submissions at record levels, the Emerald addition, and AI momentum all contributing. Learning, on the other hand, faced challenges from a prior year comparison, soft market conditions in professional, and a seasonally small quarter in academic.
We generated $14 million of AI revenue in the quarter, and our pipeline is expanding across models, channels, and verticals. We remain well on track to deliver our full-year AI revenue goals. Our Spectral Analysis API portfolio launched into the laboratory market. It is another milestone in our evolution towards an AI and data analytics company. I will explain this advance later in my remarks. We are integrating Emerald to extend our scale advantage in research and content advantage for AI and data analytics. As expected, the fit is strong on all three dimensions: financially, strategically, and culturally. Our teams are working very well together, and the integration is ahead of schedule. And we raised our dividend for the 33rd consecutive year, putting Wiley in rarefied company. Turning to the headline numbers, Craig will provide more detail, but performance this quarter was in line with our plan.
Two known factors drove the year-over-year revenue comparison. The $29 million of AI licensing revenue that landed in the prior year quarter and continued soft market conditions in learning, particularly professional. Neither changes how we see the full year. AI revenue was $14 million in the quarter, with a further $14 million already contracted across Q2 and Q3. Emerald contributed $13 million to the top line. On profitability, Adjusted EBITDA was down 4% on the year-over-year revenue performance. Adjusted EPS was down 10%, further impacted by higher net interest expense related to the Emerald acquisition. GAAP EPS was a loss of $0.23 compared to earnings of $0.22 in the prior year, largely due to restructuring charges and acquisition and integration costs. Let us discuss our continuing strong progress in research. Our key metric for research is publishing throughput.
Strong demand to publish remains undiminished worldwide, with submissions up 31% and output up 8%, demonstrating both continued growth and a clear focus on quality. This is evident across both rapidly growing and mature markets. We successfully closed our calendar 2026 journal renewal season with customer retention remaining above 99%. On expanding our journal portfolio and leading brands, we launched two new Advanced journals, "Advanced Immunology" and "Advanced Brain," and published the first papers in "Advanced Computing" and "Advanced Oncology." As a reminder, our Advanced portfolio is accelerating as a global top-tier brand across disciplines, with more than 30 journal titles and revenue of $70 million growing at strong double digits. Also, in the recent Industry Citation Index, released annually, 15 Wiley journals were ranked number one in their respective categories, with 248 of our journals achieving top 10 rankings.
Wiley now accounts for over 10% of all citations in the index. This is an important quality signal, and quality is what deepens our competitive moat. On driving publishing efficiency and margin expansion, we increased our research Adjusted EBITDA margin by 130 basis points to 29.6% through the addition of Emerald and cost savings initiatives. We now have 1,600 journals migrated to our Research Exchange publishing platform. On leveraging our IP and relationships for AI and data analytics growth, our clinical outcome assessments growth engine is rapidly expanding. This portfolio grew from $6 million in fiscal 2025 to $11 million last year, and we see a strong trajectory ahead. Q1 revenue rose by more than threefold, thanks to Wiley's leading differentiated position. As a reminder, clinical outcome assessments are peer-reviewed instruments that are used in clinical trials to measure the impact of treatment from the patient's perspective.
They've been developed carefully, tested across patient groups, and proven to measure what they claim to measure. Choosing the correct instrument early, licensing it properly, and implementing it effectively can be the difference between a multimillion-dollar trial that succeeds and one that stalls, and that makes them essential R&D infrastructure. This is where we come in. We own and license a broad and growing portfolio of these instruments across disease areas and alongside full implementation services. An important milestone, as I mentioned, is that we launched our transformative Spectral Analysis APIs for the corporate and academic laboratory markets, delivering the industry's most trusted gold-standard chemical reference data directly into automated laboratory software pipelines. For corporate R&D labs, this will replace slow manual analysis with embedded real-time spectral intelligence.
Said one industry newsletter, "The launch of the Spectral Analysis API portfolio is the clearest signal yet of Wiley's evolution from a legacy publisher into a modern data and technology company." Let's consider why the research engine remains robust. Publishing is the key metric of academic progress, shaping employment, promotions, prestige, and grant acquisition. The need to publish continues to rise alongside global R&D investment and is now further accelerated by AI advancements. Looking at research across the rest of the year, six reinforcing drivers continue to give us confidence. First, our publishing pipeline is robust and our scale advantage is widening. With submissions outpacing an already strong market and researcher productivity set to rise further with AI. Large-scale, high-quality publishers like Wiley have a structural advantage, and our Q1 KPIs say that is continuing. Second, we concluded a solid calendar 2026 renewal season with strong customer retention.
Third, open access growth continues to compound at double digits, driven by the must-have dynamics of publishing worldwide and our journal brand expansion. In fact, we closed July with record gold open access output. Fourth, Emerald is off to a fast start, giving us strong confidence in the combination going forward. Fifth, our clinical outcome assessments pipeline of pharma companies is multiplying. Our IQVIA go-to-market partnership is scaling, and we continue to activate new in-demand instruments to further bolster our leadership position. Separately, our OpenEvidence partnership is deepening, with additional content now under agreement. Finally, we're seeing nice and early momentum in audience monetization. As discussed, we are transitioning this business from traditional advertising to an audience analytics platform underpinned by modern ad tech, AI-enabled product development, and verified research professional audiences.
The healthcare advertising market is large and expanding, and our edge is the combination we already hold: proprietary content, deep society relationships, and an emerging corporate customer base in healthcare and the audiences that come with them. Our digital research content and platforms generate billions of user sessions each year. We recently rolled out new sophisticated ad tech for contextual targeting, along with improved outcomes reporting and agentic tools for audience engagement. The early results are promising with good growth in Q1 billings. Now on to our AI and data analytics growth engine, the second turn of the flywheel. As a reminder, we took total AI revenue from $23 million in fiscal 2024 to $40 million in fiscal 2025 and $49 million in fiscal 2026.
Given our pipelines, we remain well on track for over $50 million in fiscal 2027 and AI recurring revenue growing 2x-3x over prior year. In Q1, we realized $14 million of AI revenue, ahead of the pace we need for our full-year target. Importantly, the mix is shifting the way we want. Of the $14 million, $10.5 million is from model training and $3.5 million is recurring. As I mentioned, we've contracted a further $14 million of AI licensing revenue that will be realized across Q2 and Q3, with additional agreements in active discussion. On the corporate side, we've expanded our customer base for subscription knowledge feeds, bringing us to 23 across five industry verticals: life sciences, healthcare, food and agriculture, materials and chemistry, and financial services. A year ago, this was largely a life sciences story.
While that continues to be a big focus for us, it's a lot broader than that now. Finally, our Wiley AI Knowledge Nexus licensing service continues to add more society and publishing partners, bringing the total to 71. As previously discussed, partnerships are foundational to our strategy. This quarter, we were invited to join the public-private partnership supporting the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission alongside some of the world's largest AI innovators. The mission is a nationwide effort to put AI to work on the country's hardest science and technology problems, and we're the only scientific publisher at the table. Our role is substantive. We will make our research intelligence tools available to researchers across all DOE national laboratories, provide thought leadership on how AI models are validated against scientific evidence and how scientific data is managed, and help shape the consortium's foundational knowledge layer.
This builds on decades of engagement with the DOE and other federal science agencies. We became a founding data partner in CuspAI's AI Materials Foundry, a global network comprising over 45 organizations aimed at speeding up new materials discovery. The foundry focuses on semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing, where progress is limited by materials rather than engineering. Our contribution is the data layer. CuspAI has licensed access to Wiley's material science content to train the platform. This underscores how our content is being integrated into AI systems that will increasingly drive scientific discovery. AI momentum remains broad-based across verticals, products, and channels, and our pipeline is advancing rapidly across model training, commercial licensing, and subscription knowledge feeds. Of note, model training is becoming a proven engine with both new and repeat customers.
At the same time, corporate R&D demand is accelerating across chemistry, food and agriculture, and other domains, while healthcare opportunities widen across large corporates and AI startups. Through our Nexus licensing service and our own publishing engine, the content and intelligence available to license keeps growing. We remain well on track with our full-year AI growth targets. Beyond this, what we see forming is bigger than any one year. The world's most important AI systems are being built on trusted scientific knowledge, and Wiley is becoming a foundational supplier and partner in that economy. As discussed in June, our position rests on a remarkably deep reservoir of proprietary data. In addition to published articles in journals, we have structured metadata and linked domains, and validated research protocols and methods, how studies were designed, not just what they found.
We have the peer review and editorial record behind that work, and credibility accumulated over many decades. We have citation networks and reference graphs, effectively a map of how knowledge in one discipline draws on another. We have relationships with both authors and institutions, who is researching what and where. Wiley holds leading content positions in the disciplines that matter most in the AI economy: 150+ therapeutic areas in life sciences and healthcare, 100+ areas in chemistry and spectral data, 50+ in engineering and material science, 45+ in agriculture and food science topics, along with the leading crops disease database, and now with Emerald, a leadership position across all key areas of economics, business, and finance. Our advantage isn't only breadth, it's depth, where corporate R&D is tackling its most consequential problems and where the next breakthroughs will come from.
This depth is now showing up as a widening set of use cases and markets. As a reminder, we're pursuing three organic growth pathways around AI and data analytics: database solutions, applied research intelligence, and audience monetization, each drawing on our existing IP. What this slide shows is where those pathways are landing commercially today. Our structured data is relevant across each, from dermatology instruments for clinical outcome assessments with IQVIA to medical content at the point of care with OpenEvidence. We're working directly with decision-makers inside of corporations, institutions, and government bodies, deploying our IP for LLM development, corporate AI applications, and academic labs. We'll lay out our full roadmap at our fiscal 2027 Investor Day, scheduled for Thursday, March 11th, at our headquarters in Hoboken, New Jersey. We hope to see you there. A few words on our critical role in ensuring responsible AI.
By grounding AI in evidence-based knowledge, Wiley helps close the trust gap in AI while enabling innovation that benefits many. This mission has made us an AI thought leader worldwide. Here's the distinction I draw. Most companies approach responsible AI from the model outward, guardrails and policies bolted onto the technology. We start a layer deeper. Responsible AI depends on the quality of the knowledge that fuels it, and that's what Wiley has spent two centuries building. You cannot make an unreliable model reliable with policy alone. You have to fix what it learns from, and we're protecting the scientific record as AI use surges among scholars. Our approach rests on four commitments. One, human oversight. We ensure that judgment stays with people, not models, and that peer review remains a human endeavor. Two, trust and transparency.
We protect intellectual property and set the integrity standards for how our content is used. Three, safety and fairness. We ensure it through strict data privacy and active bias mitigation. Four, good governance. We ensure clear internal controls and constructive engagement on smart regulation rather than resistance to it. The market is asking for exactly this. We answered it in October with comprehensive AI guidelines for authors, editors, and peer reviewers covering disclosure, reproducibility, and confidentiality. We've built citation and attribution requirements directly into our technical integrations, including our work with Anthropic. We've stood up AI oversight across the company. All this speaks to the central role of the research publisher in enabling the global scientific ecosystem and ensuring the quality and impact of high-stakes AI models. The last point I'd make is about posture. We're setting the agenda here, not reacting to it.
We were the only publishing sponsor at the United Nations AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva this year, and that leadership is commercially load-bearing. When the U.S. Department of Energy or CuspAI chooses a data foundation, the standards behind the content are part of what they are buying. Trust is the product. With that, I'll hand it over to Craig to take you through the financials.
Thank you, Matt, and hello, everyone. I'll take you through the two segments, then cost and capital allocation, and close with the outlook. Most of the year-over-year decline in the quarter sits in the prior year AI licensing comparison, with the balance in learning during its seasonally lightest period. Underneath that, the operating base strengthened. Research margin expanded 130 basis points. Corporate expenses on an Adjusted EBITDA basis came down 19%, and free cash flow improved by $30 million. Those are the trends that carry the full year, and our outlook is unchanged. On to research. Total revenue was $293 million, up 4%. Research Publishing grew 12%, with $13 million from Emerald and the balance from open access growth and AI licensing. Excluding Emerald, publishing grew about 6%.
Research Solutions declined 30%, almost entirely on the prior year AI licensing comparison, with softer publishing services and recruiting, partly offset by growth in advertising. Adjusted EBITDA was $87 million, up 9%, with margin up 130 basis points to 29.6%. Emerald Publishing added $5 million at a margin above the segment average. Most of the research margin expansion was organic cost savings after continued investment in the Advanced journal portfolio and in clinical outcome assessments. Emerald Publishing integration is tracking ahead of plan, with cost synergy capture underway and early AI licensing interest building. Now to learning, where revenue was $93 million, down 20%. Academic was $45 million, down 20%, with $8 million of prior year AI licensing and declines in print, offsetting growth in digital content and courseware.
Inclusive access, where the cost of digital course content is added to a student's tuition and fees, remains a catalyst for us and the industry. Professional was $48 million, down 20%, reflecting $5 million of prior year AI licensing, softer consumer demand in retail, and softer corporate demand in assessments. In retail, industry unit sales declined at the same rate as ours, so that pressure is market-wide. Excluding the prior year AI comparison, the segment declined just under 10%. Adjusted EBITDA was $14 million, with margin at 15.1% against 27.4%, reflecting revenue decline and mix. The first quarter carries our most difficult comparison of the year. Retail channel inventories normalize as we move through it. Courseware and inclusive access continue to grow, and we expect assessments to improve.
Meanwhile, we are concentrating the editorial list on titles that earn their place, pushing harder on digital and inclusive access, and taking cost out to protect margin. Cost and operating efficiency remain a central priority. Corporate expenses on an adjusted EBITDA basis were $33 million in the quarter, down $8 million or 19%, building on the reduction from $166 million in fiscal 2025 to $143 million in fiscal 2026. Technology restructuring drove most of that, and some of the quarter also reflects timing of spend. Three work streams sit behind this trajectory. First, technology transformation, where we are reducing legacy and maintenance costs and shifting toward product and innovation. In the quarter, that meant retiring tech debt, consolidating facilities, and building out our partnership with Virtusa. Second, the corporate cost base, where restructuring continues to take cost out of shared services, led by technology and global operations.
Third, AI productivity, where deployments in legal, marketing, and content operations are advancing. Those savings are ahead of us rather than in this quarter's numbers, and we are scoping the next wave against run rate targets. A quick update on capital allocation and our financial position. First, organic investment. CapEx was $14 million against $15 million a year ago, with the mix shifting toward growth and product development. We expect CapEx of approximately $80 million this year, up from $65 million. Second, inorganic investment. We acquired Emerald Publishing in the quarter for approximately $450 million net in cash at roughly 7x adjusted EBITDA, including targeted cost synergies. Our expectations are unchanged from June, with EPS accretion in year one, the bulk of the cost synergies in year two, and the full $30 million by year three. We also expect revenue synergies from geographic expansion, cross-selling, and licensing.
Third, portfolio optimization. We continue to manage our portfolio for growth and margin fit. Fourth, return to shareholders. We raised the dividend for the 33rd consecutive year and returned $33 million through dividends and repurchases. On the financial position, free cash flow was a use of $70 million against a use of $100 million a year ago. The improvement is working capital timing, principally collections of late fourth-quarter renewal signings, partly offset by $14 million of higher restructuring and acquisition-related payments. Free cash flow is historically a use through the first half, given the timing of annual journal subscriptions, and our full-year outlook of $205 million is on track. Net Debt-to-EBITDA on a trailing 12-month basis was 2.7x against 1.9x a year ago, reflecting the June 1 Emerald acquisition.
Including Emerald synergies, pro forma leverage is 2.1x within our range of 1.5x-2.5x. Let me close with our outlook, which we are reaffirming in full. Organic revenue growth of low to mid-single digits with research at mid-single digits. Organic growth excludes the expected $78 million Emerald contribution over 11 months of fiscal 2027. Emerald is included in all other metrics. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.5%-27.5%, up from 26.2% in fiscal 2026 and 24% in fiscal 2025. Adjusted EPS of $4.60-$5.05, up from $4.19, including roughly $0.10 from Emerald. Free cash flow of $205 million, up from $195 million, with Emerald dilutive by $15 million in year one before turning accretive in fiscal 2028. Our investment priorities are unchanged. Journal and brand expansion, clinical outcome assessments, structured data and research intelligence platforms, and audience analytics.
We are integrating Emerald, rolling out the Research Exchange platform across the rest of our journal base, and standing up our AI center of excellence to take cost and time out of our processes, all while moving technology spend from maintenance to product. We are investing in compounding growth and taking cost out at the same time. Every dollar competes for the highest return, and that discipline is what lets us fund the opportunity in front of us while driving return on invested capital higher. With that, I'll pass the call back to Matt.
Thank you, Craig. To summarize, we delivered the quarter we planned for, absorbing a known $29 million AI comparison headwind while our growth engines kept building. We're well on track to deliver mid-single-digit growth and research, with strong publishing demand and output, share gains, and society wins. Long-term trends remain favorable. We're also on track for our AI revenue goals, with $14 million realized through Q1 and a strong pipeline ahead. Our growth vectors are materializing. We are fast-tracking operational excellence with the full launch of the Research Exchange platform, our tech transformation programs, and our AI center of excellence. We're driving cost improvement and continuous margin expansion while freeing up capacity to invest. We remain relentlessly focused on disciplined investment and capital allocation to drive higher ROIC and recurring revenue growth while rewarding shareholders.
Before I open it up to questions, a quick reminder to mark your calendars for our fiscal 2027 Investor Day on March 11th. The program is expected to run from 9:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. As always, I want to thank our global colleagues for all they do to show that a company can do good and do well at the same time. Finally, 2027 marks Wiley's 220th year of continuous change and innovation. We intend to be known not only as one of the oldest companies in the U.S., but one of its most relevant. Let's open the line to questions.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you're muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Dan Moore with CJS Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is William for Dan. Thanks for taking our questions this morning.
Yes, good morning. How are you?
Doing good. Organic revenue growth in Research, excluding AI revenue and Emerald, was 5%. How does that compare to peers in the market overall, and how does that enhance your confidence in your mid-single-digit growth outlook for the business, both in fiscal year 2027 and beyond?
Yeah, let me begin, and then I'll turn it over to Craig, who can drill in. This is Matt. We're growing along the same lines with the leaders in the market. The confidence is really driven by many of the leading indicators that I talked about. Our KPIs are quite strong. This is a seasonally slow quarter for that business because it tends to be back-ended towards Q3 and Q4. But we have confidence in the full-year guidance because our signals are all quite strong. Craig, do you want to add any additional color to that?
Yeah. I think we have previously commented that we see the long-term growth rate of the market in the 3%-4% range. You quoted a number a little bit higher, and we're seeing similar trends on that. We're particularly excited about how the momentum builds as we go throughout the year. We see some growth coming in our calendar year renewals centered around the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ad that we had. Author-paid open access continues to be supported with strong volume growth. The investments we've been making behind certain areas like Advanced brand and geographic expansion are really starting to pay some dividends in the way that we're looking at the business. So we feel very comfortable about keeping in line with market averages.
That is very helpful. Thank you. Then looking at Q2, remind us how much AI-related revenue you generated last year in Q2, and then what your expectations are for this quarter.
Yeah, let me take that one. For quarter two last year, we had pretty significant. It started off in the year in the pretty significant number, as you recall, from the $29 million compares. We went into the second quarter, it kind of balanced out, and it was a little bit more balanced around $6 million or so in the second quarter, and repeated a similar number in the third and fourth quarter. We've previously highlighted that these types of deals are lumpy. Matt highlighted we've done $14 million in the fourth quarter, and we've already contracted for another $14 million over the next two quarters. We see pretty similar phasing. You can continue to expect some variability or lumpiness as we go. But right now we see continued phasing in line with what we saw in the prior year.
Yeah, and I would comment, this is Matt, as you think about the AI revenues, and I commented on this in my remarks, to think about it in terms of growing a more continuous revenue stream in parallel with these licensing arrangements, which tend to be lumpy. This is still a business. This AI licensing is still a business that's evolving. It's still early as our clients learn how to use AI as effectively as they can in their business.
Yes, and then just as a follow-on to that, overall, how should we think about the cadence of top-line growth, margin expansion, EPS for the year?
Yeah. One characteristic that's true of our business is Q1 tends to be one of our seasonally lighter quarters, and we see momentum build as we go throughout the year. We see a very similar pattern emerging ahead of us here. That would be one kind of indicator for where we think we're going. As you saw, we're reaffirming full-year guidance, and that's consistent with seasonally soft first quarter, picking up in quarter two, three, and four and delivering on the commitments that we've shared with you in the earnings presentation.
Yeah, the drivers are strong growth in our foundational Research Publishing business. The newer growth engines in AI data analytics are starting to get traction later in the year, in the third and fourth quarters, which will give us momentum into the next fiscal. While underneath that is continuous margin improvement. That is not a one-time event. It is just as you have seen over the last couple of years, we have demonstrated that we can do this. We can take that kind of margin improvement and share it with shareholders and also redeploy it into driving growth.
Thank you. Can you talk about what you have seen so far at Emerald? I know it has only been two months since the acquisition, but just any surprises, good, bad, or otherwise?
Yeah. Again, I will begin and turn it over to Craig if he wants to add some color. So, no surprises. As we talked about when we introduced the concept of Emerald, it is a really good fit with our journal portfolio. I think what we are seeing is only reinforcing that logic. It is a very well-run company with talented people, and culturally very similar to us. As I have mentioned in my remarks, if anything, again, it is early, it is two, three months into this, but the signals are running all green, and quite frankly, we are ahead of the pace that we initially established. So, we are very encouraged and view it as a very strong strategic move with actually terrific financial characteristics.
Yeah, I would just add to Matt's comment. Off to a good start. We like what we see both in the stability and the strength of the customer and the revenue base. The working relationship between our two teams has been very positive as we have come together and become one company. We have highlighted from a synergies perspective, modest expectations for the first year, the bulk of the synergies emerging in year two, and achieving the full run rate of synergies of $30 million by year three. We are very much on track for that, running slightly ahead in the first year. I would not say materially at this point, so we are just going to keep our eyes on it.
But every indicator we have is that we are on or ahead of schedule right now and very pleased with the fit and the combination of Emerald with Wiley.
Thank you. Can you also provide a little deeper dive into some of the recent partnerships you have announced, starting with IQVIA? Is that generating meaningful revenue for you at this stage?
Yep.
How are things progressing and what is a reasonable expectation?
IQVIA is a really terrific example of how we talk about a partnership network enabling us to punch above our weight. Because IQVIA has a very big presence in the drug evaluation business, clinical trials. We have, as we have talked about, a very important tool in our clinical outcome assessments, peer-reviewed tools that are used in these clinical trials. So we are able to have two and two equal five because IQVIA, as a partner, has an established presence, established distribution, and we have this critical instrument. So it is not just a licensing deal, it is really a strategic partnership. It is really a model of the way we are going to build the AI and data analytics business. We see partnering as, culturally, we are very good at it. It comes from our society business where we are the largest society publisher in the world.
We have terrific long-term relationships, American Cancer Society, 30 years of dealing with these learned societies. So we can take that partnering DNA and use it to basically energize and accelerate our entry into AI and data analytics. Craig, do you want to comment on the financial side of this? It was in my remarks about how that business has been growing, the clinical outcome assessments.
Clinical outcomes. Yeah.
Yeah.
We've talked a little bit about this in the past, but clinical outcome assessments is one of those kind of hidden gems, the diamonds in the rough. It grew from hundreds of thousand dollars to $11 million last year. We continue just to see great continued growth and potential this year that shows this year in line with our expectations, another great year of growth for clinical outcome assessment. I think we're on the front end of something really big here, and we're excited about where that's headed.
Yeah. It also is a great illustration of what we believe that we have hidden gems within this research corpus we have, that go way beyond just publishing content. Internally, we have a pipeline of ideas similar to clinical outcome assessments that we're now developing, experimenting with, so we can create similar new business lines.
Thank you. Similar questions, how are things progressing with OpenEvidence as well as Anthropic, AWS, and others? Individually or collectively, how should we think about the revenue models and what those agreements could look like from a financial perspective for 2027 and the next few years?
Yeah, thanks for asking that. We are really pleased with the early stages of the work we are doing together with OpenEvidence. Just as a reminder, that was an agreement we struck, which was $15 million over five years. It is a modest add for where we are working on, but a great example of what we are doing with commercial licensing, in areas that we can here. I would say we continue to work and develop and see promise of that expanding. Still early days, but on track with what we want to do and a great partnership that we have established.
Yeah. We have added content as we have built on our initial relationship. Another example of leveraging partnerships, because OpenEvidence has a very strong footprint into the U.S. physician market, and it is a terrific opportunity for us to partner to, again, use our valuable content to create new revenue streams for us.
Thank you. Just one more from me, looking at the learning business. First, what was the impact of Amazon reducing inventories this quarter? When do we cycle against that? How much longer do you expect that to be a headwind? Then follow-up, excluding print and digital books, what was the organic growth rate for the remaining businesses in learning?
Yeah. I am going to give you some top lines on this. We do not go into that level of detail in terms of our public data here, but what I can tell you about learning is we are at where we expected with learning. In particular, if you kind of break down the learning business, it is really two major segments, academic, professional. We see academic being very healthy, driven by things like digital content, courseware, inclusive access, and continued growth potential and opportunity. In the professional space, it is really made up of two business areas, one around trade publishing or the professional books business, and the other assessments. It is in the trade publishing area, as we call it internal, where we saw last year the significant reduction in inventory on hand, through the Amazon channel.
That had an impact on our business. If you recall, it really impacted us in the latter parts of August. We are really in the toughest compare in a year-over-year perspective on a change that we saw happening really at the end of August last year. There has been some softness in demand and sell-through, as we call it, in some of the titles in the areas that we are seeing here. We are still working and monitoring and thinking about our title positioning and managing through that part. The other part that I talked about was assessments. We see steadier performance here. It was a little bit light in Q1, but we definitely see some improved performance potential as we are moving through the year on that.
Stepping back, I would say normalizing trends in trade publishing against these inventory-on-hand impacts that we saw in August, improved performance and assessments, as we continue to modify the business model there. In particular, as we kind of move forward here, I think, on the opposite side, the inclusive access and side books are going to continue to drive growth for us as we move through the year. So improving trends to look forward, I would describe them as normalizing against the prior year impacts, pretty much where we expected they would be, and we continue to manage that business with a lot of strong talent and discipline looking into it.
Thank you very much.
This concludes the Q&A. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Kissner for closing remarks.
Well, thank you again for your continued support and confidence as we work hard to build the next chapter of Wiley, opening the door to new and exciting businesses around our terrific research franchise. We will update you again in December. Again, note that March date because I know that we definitely owe you a more detailed view of our plans for the future. With that, thanks very much for joining us.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-08-27Wiley Schedules First Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Release and Conference Call
Business Wire
Wiley Schedules First Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Release and Conference Call
HOBOKEN, N.J., August 27, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wiley (NYSE: WLY), a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning, will release its first quarter fiscal 2027 results prior to market open on Thursday, September 3, 2026. The Company has scheduled a conference call that day beginning at 10am ET to discuss the results. Access webcast at Investor Relations at investors.wiley.com, or directly at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/638218988 North American callers, please dial (833) 461-5787 and enter the Meeting ID 638 218 988. International callers, please dial (585) 542-9983 and enter the Meeting ID 638 218 988. ABOUT WILEY Wiley (NYSE: WLY) is a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning. With more than 200 years at the center of the scholarly ecosystem, Wiley combines trusted publishing heritage with AI-powered platforms to transform how knowledge is discovered, accessed, and applied. From individual researchers and students to Fortune 500 R&D teams, Wiley enables the transformation of scientific breakthroughs into real-world impact. From knowledge to impact—Wiley is redefining what's possible in science and learning. Visit us at Wiley.com and Investors.Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260827025911/en/ Contacts Investor Contact: Brian Campbell(201) [email protected]
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-06-28The Bull Case For John Wiley & Sons (WLY) Could Change Following 33rd Straight Dividend Hike And Earnings Update
Simply Wall St.
The Bull Case For John Wiley & Sons (WLY) Could Change Following 33rd Straight Dividend Hike And Earnings Update
John Wiley & Sons recently announced that its Board approved a quarterly cash dividend of US$0.3575 per share on Class A and Class B stock, payable on July 23, 2026, and reported fourth-quarter sales of US$447.94 million with full-year net income of US$221.62 million for the period ended April 30, 2026. The new dividend marks Wiley’s 33rd consecutive annual increase, underscoring a long-running commitment to returning cash to shareholders alongside higher earnings per share from continuing operations over the past fiscal year. Now we’ll examine how this 33-year dividend growth streak and stronger earnings shape Wiley’s existing investment narrative and risk profile. Uncover the next big thing with 21 elite penny stocks that balance risk and reward. To own John Wiley & Sons, you need to believe in its ability to keep monetizing high quality research and learning content while managing the shift toward digital, AI and open access models. The latest dividend increase and solid earnings support the near term catalyst of consistent cash returns, but do not materially change the key risk that changing publishing and access models could pressure margins and growth. The recent full year 2026 results are most relevant here, with net income of US$221.62 million and higher earnings per share from continuing operations despite essentially flat sales at US$1,676.53 million. This suggests that, for now, Wiley is pairing its 33 year dividend growth streak with improved profitability, which matters for investors focused on whether cash distributions are being underpinned by the core business rather than financial engineering or one off items. Yet even with this progress, investors should be aware that growing global pressure for open access and alternative publishing models could... Read the full narrative on John Wiley & Sons (it's free!) John Wiley & Sons' narrative projects $1.9 billion revenue and $224.2 million earnings by 2029. This requires 4.7% yearly revenue growth and a modest $2.6 million earnings increase from $221.6 million today. Uncover how John Wiley & Sons' forecasts yield a $68.00 fair value, a 41% upside to its current price. Simply Wall St Community members see fair value for Wiley ranging from US$68.00 to about US$136.54 across 2 independent estimates, underscoring how far apart views can be. You should weigh those opinions against the risk that acceler…Read full documentShow less
John Wiley & Sons recently announced that its Board approved a quarterly cash dividend of US$0.3575 per share on Class A and Class B stock, payable on July 23, 2026, and reported fourth-quarter sales of US$447.94 million with full-year net income of US$221.62 million for the period ended April 30, 2026. The new dividend marks Wiley’s 33rd consecutive annual increase, underscoring a long-running commitment to returning cash to shareholders alongside higher earnings per share from continuing operations over the past fiscal year. Now we’ll examine how this 33-year dividend growth streak and stronger earnings shape Wiley’s existing investment narrative and risk profile. Uncover the next big thing with 21 elite penny stocks that balance risk and reward. To own John Wiley & Sons, you need to believe in its ability to keep monetizing high quality research and learning content while managing the shift toward digital, AI and open access models. The latest dividend increase and solid earnings support the near term catalyst of consistent cash returns, but do not materially change the key risk that changing publishing and access models could pressure margins and growth. The recent full year 2026 results are most relevant here, with net income of US$221.62 million and higher earnings per share from continuing operations despite essentially flat sales at US$1,676.53 million. This suggests that, for now, Wiley is pairing its 33 year dividend growth streak with improved profitability, which matters for investors focused on whether cash distributions are being underpinned by the core business rather than financial engineering or one off items. Yet even with this progress, investors should be aware that growing global pressure for open access and alternative publishing models could... Read the full narrative on John Wiley & Sons (it's free!) John Wiley & Sons' narrative projects $1.9 billion revenue and $224.2 million earnings by 2029. This requires 4.7% yearly revenue growth and a modest $2.6 million earnings increase from $221.6 million today. Uncover how John Wiley & Sons' forecasts yield a $68.00 fair value, a 41% upside to its current price. Simply Wall St Community members see fair value for Wiley ranging from US$68.00 to about US$136.54 across 2 independent estimates, underscoring how far apart views can be. You should weigh those opinions against the risk that accelerating open access and alternative publishing formats may affect Wiley's ability to sustain margins and earnings over time, and consider how different assumptions here can drive very different conclusions about the business. Explore 2 other fair value estimates on John Wiley & Sons - why the stock might be worth just $68.00! Don't just follow the ticker - dig into the data and build a conviction that's truly your own. A great starting point for your John Wiley & Sons research is our analysis highlighting 4 key rewards and 1 important warning sign that could impact your investment decision. Our free John Wiley & Sons research report provides a comprehensive fundamental analysis summarized in a single visual - the Snowflake - making it easy to evaluate John Wiley & Sons' overall financial health at a glance. Our top stock finds are flying under the radar-for now. Get in early: Invest in the nuclear renaissance through our list of 89 elite nuclear energy infrastructure plays powering the global AI revolution. We've uncovered the 8 dividend fortresses yielding 5%+ that don't just survive market storms, but thrive in them. Rare earth metals are an input to most high-tech devices, military and defence systems and electric vehicles. The global race is on to secure supply of these critical minerals. Beat the pack to uncover the 30 best rare earth metal stocks of the very few that mine this essential strategic resource. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include WLY. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email [email protected]
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-06-16John Wiley & Sons Q4 Earnings Call Highlights
MarketBeat
John Wiley & Sons Q4 Earnings Call Highlights
Interested in John Wiley & Sons, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Wiley posted record profitability and cash flow in fiscal 2026, with adjusted EBITDA margin rising to 26.2%, adjusted operating margin to 17.7%, and free cash flow up 55% to $195 million. The company also raised its dividend for the 32nd straight year and returned $174 million to shareholders. Research publishing and AI are now Wiley’s two main growth engines, with research output up 11% and revenue up 4%, while AI revenue climbed from $23 million in fiscal 2024 to $49 million in fiscal 2026. Management expects AI revenue to surpass $50 million in fiscal 2027 as recurring AI subscriptions expand. The Emerald Publishing acquisition strengthens Wiley’s social sciences portfolio and is expected to add scale, recurring revenue, and cost synergies. Wiley expects about $30 million in synergies by year three and sees the deal as modestly accretive to EPS in year one and accretive to free cash flow in year two. John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) executives said the company delivered record margins and sharply higher cash flow in fiscal 2026, while positioning its research publishing assets as a foundation for growth in artificial intelligence and data analytics. President and CEO Matthew Kissner called fiscal 2026 Wiley’s “breakout year,” citing record margins, “exceptional cash flow growth,” expanded AI partnerships and the company’s recently announced acquisition of Emerald Publishing. Kissner said Wiley’s strategy is centered on two reinforcing growth engines: research publishing and AI and data analytics. → Viasat's Orbiting Profits: Space Force Jackpot? “AI is only as good as the content and data that fuels it, and Wiley has one of the most comprehensive and trusted portfolios in the world,” Kissner said, adding that research publishing supplies the trusted content needed for AI applications, while AI can accelerate research output and publishing growth. For the full year, Wiley reported adjusted revenue that was flat year over year, or up 1% including currency impact, compared with its prior outlook for low-single-digit growth. Management said learning-related headwinds were the primary reason revenue trailed expectations. → Meta to Follow Alphabet's Footsteps? What an Equity Raise Could Mean Research remained the company’s strongest segment, with output up 11% and revenue up 4%. Wiley said…Read full documentShow less
Interested in John Wiley & Sons, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Wiley posted record profitability and cash flow in fiscal 2026, with adjusted EBITDA margin rising to 26.2%, adjusted operating margin to 17.7%, and free cash flow up 55% to $195 million. The company also raised its dividend for the 32nd straight year and returned $174 million to shareholders. Research publishing and AI are now Wiley’s two main growth engines, with research output up 11% and revenue up 4%, while AI revenue climbed from $23 million in fiscal 2024 to $49 million in fiscal 2026. Management expects AI revenue to surpass $50 million in fiscal 2027 as recurring AI subscriptions expand. The Emerald Publishing acquisition strengthens Wiley’s social sciences portfolio and is expected to add scale, recurring revenue, and cost synergies. Wiley expects about $30 million in synergies by year three and sees the deal as modestly accretive to EPS in year one and accretive to free cash flow in year two. John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) executives said the company delivered record margins and sharply higher cash flow in fiscal 2026, while positioning its research publishing assets as a foundation for growth in artificial intelligence and data analytics. President and CEO Matthew Kissner called fiscal 2026 Wiley’s “breakout year,” citing record margins, “exceptional cash flow growth,” expanded AI partnerships and the company’s recently announced acquisition of Emerald Publishing. Kissner said Wiley’s strategy is centered on two reinforcing growth engines: research publishing and AI and data analytics. → Viasat's Orbiting Profits: Space Force Jackpot? “AI is only as good as the content and data that fuels it, and Wiley has one of the most comprehensive and trusted portfolios in the world,” Kissner said, adding that research publishing supplies the trusted content needed for AI applications, while AI can accelerate research output and publishing growth. For the full year, Wiley reported adjusted revenue that was flat year over year, or up 1% including currency impact, compared with its prior outlook for low-single-digit growth. Management said learning-related headwinds were the primary reason revenue trailed expectations. → Meta to Follow Alphabet's Footsteps? What an Equity Raise Could Mean Research remained the company’s strongest segment, with output up 11% and revenue up 4%. Wiley said article submissions rose 25%, compared with industry output growth of 6% to 8%. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 220 basis points to 26.2%, while adjusted operating margin rose 260 basis points to 17.7%. Kissner said both were all-time highs in the company’s reporting history. Adjusted EPS grew 15%. → Oil Could Dip, But These 3 Energy Stocks Still Look Built to Win Free cash flow rose 55% to $195 million, helped by improved operating performance and lower capital expenditures. CFO Craig Albright said free cash flow was moderated by late journal renewal signings that shifted some cash collection from the fourth quarter into the first quarter of fiscal 2027. Wiley returned $174 million to shareholders during the year, including $100 million in share repurchases. Kissner said the company also raised its dividend for the 32nd consecutive year. Net leverage ended the year at 1.4 times, and management said pro forma leverage following the Emerald acquisition was about 2.1 times, within Wiley’s long-term target range of 1.5 to 2.5 times. Kissner said Wiley’s research business is expected to continue growing at a mid-single-digit pace, supported by growth in submissions, journal output, society partnerships and the company’s advanced journal portfolio. The company said its Advanced Portfolio now generates $70 million in revenue and is growing at double-digit rates. Kissner also highlighted Wiley’s signing of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which had self-published for nearly 150 years before choosing Wiley as a publishing partner. He also noted a renewal with the American Cancer Society, now in its 30th year with Wiley. Wiley’s Research Exchange platform, designed to modernize publishing workflows, also signed its first external publisher client, Liverpool University Press. Kissner said Wiley sees a “meaningful market” for migrating additional smaller publishers onto the platform. Wiley executives devoted significant attention to the recently announced acquisition of Emerald Publishing, which the company acquired for roughly $450 million, or about 7 times adjusted EBITDA on a synergized basis. Albright later referred to the transaction as a $452 million all-cash deal. Emerald brings nearly 500 journals, thousands of book titles and case studies, and about 500,000 backfile assets. Management said more than 90% of Emerald’s $85 million in revenue is recurring, with customer retention above 99%. Kissner said the deal strengthens Wiley’s position in social sciences, including economics, business, finance and related fields. He also said Emerald generates only 15% of its revenue from North America, while North America represents about 40% of global social sciences research spending, creating a potential growth opportunity for Wiley. Wiley expects $30 million of cost synergies by year three, with meaningful savings in year two. Management said Emerald is expected to be modestly accretive to adjusted EPS in year one and accretive to free cash flow in year two. Kissner said total AI revenue grew from $23 million in fiscal 2024 to $49 million in fiscal 2026, with management expecting more than $50 million in fiscal 2027. The recurring portion of AI revenue increased from roughly $1 million in fiscal 2025 to $8 million in fiscal 2026, with a path to two to three times that amount in fiscal 2027. Wiley said it now has 19 corporate customers for AI subscription knowledge feeds, up from 10 in the prior quarter. Those customers include seven of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies, according to management. The company also serves four large language model developers for training, most of them repeat customers. Kissner identified three organic growth vectors for Wiley’s AI and data analytics business: Database solutions built on proprietary data sets, including clinical outcome assessments; Applied research intelligence platforms for corporate research and development workflows; Audience monetization through analytics and advertising technology tied to Wiley’s audiences and data assets. The company’s clinical outcome assessments business grew to $11 million in fiscal 2026, up 68% from $6.5 million in fiscal 2025. Kissner described COAs as one example of “hidden gems” in Wiley’s portfolio that are becoming more valuable in AI-enabled scientific and clinical workflows. Wiley also highlighted AI-related partnerships with AWS, Anthropic, IQVIA, OpenEvidence and Microsoft. Kissner said Wiley signed a five-year agreement with OpenEvidence for research at the point of care and took a small equity position in the company. Wiley also partnered with Microsoft to integrate trusted medical research into Microsoft Dragon Copilot. For fiscal 2027, Wiley expects organic revenue to grow in the low- to mid-single-digit range, with research growing at a mid-single-digit pace. The organic revenue outlook excludes about $78 million of anticipated Emerald revenue contribution, though Emerald is included in other guidance metrics. The company guided for adjusted EBITDA margin of 26.5% to 27.5%, compared with 26.2% in fiscal 2026. Adjusted EPS is expected to range from $4.60 to $5.05, up from $4.19, including an estimated $0.10 contribution from Emerald. Free cash flow is expected to reach $205 million, up from $195 million. Albright said the outlook includes $15 million of first-year Emerald dilution, $15 million of higher capital expenditures, restructuring costs that are expected to moderate over time and higher cash taxes. During the question-and-answer session, Albright said Wiley remains focused on organic investment, disciplined M&A, portfolio optimization and shareholder returns. He said the company continues to view its shares as undervalued and remains interested in returning excess cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks, while also maintaining balance sheet flexibility after the Emerald acquisition. 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. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "John Wiley & Sons Q4 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for June 2026.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-06-16John Wiley & Sons Inc (WLY) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Record Margins and Strategic ...
GuruFocus.com
John Wiley & Sons Inc (WLY) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Record Margins and Strategic ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Adjusted Revenue: Flat to prior year, up 1% including currency impact. Research Revenue Growth: 4% increase with 11% output growth. AI Revenue Growth: Increased from $40 million to $49 million. Adjusted EBITDA Margin: Increased by 220 basis points to 26.2%. Adjusted Operating Margin: Increased by 260 basis points to 17.7%. Adjusted EPS Growth: Increased by 15%. Free Cash Flow: Up 55% to $195 million. Shareholder Returns: $174 million returned, including $100 million in share repurchases. Net Debt Ratio: Reduced to 1.4, with pro forma leverage at 2.1 after Emerald acquisition. Emerald Acquisition: $450 million, expected to be accretive to EPS in year one. Q4 Revenue: Flat on a constant currency basis. Q4 Adjusted EBITDA Growth: 17% increase with 480 basis points margin improvement. Research Publishing Q4 Growth: 5% increase. Learning Q4 Academic Revenue: Down 5% on a constant currency basis. Learning Q4 Professional Revenue: Down 10%. Corporate Expenses Reduction: Down 22% in Q4. Fiscal '27 Outlook: Organic revenue growth expected at low to mid-single digits. Fiscal '27 Adjusted EPS: Expected between $4.60 to $5.05. Fiscal '27 Free Cash Flow: Expected at $205 million. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Sign with WLY. Is WLY fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: June 16, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. John Wiley & Sons Inc (NYSE:WLY) delivered record margins and exceptional cash flow growth in fiscal 2026. The company accelerated its leadership position in the AI economy with transformational AI partnerships and strategic acquisitions. Research Publishing saw mid-single-digit growth with strong recurring revenue and market share gains. AI revenue grew significantly from $40 million to $49 million, with a rapidly expanding recurring base. The acquisition of Emerald Publishing is expected to be accretive to earnings and free cash flow, enhancing Wiley's scale and content advantage. Adjusted revenue was flat year-over-year, with learning headwinds being a primary challenge. The Learning segment faced revenue declines due to market-related challenges and softer print revenue. There were delays in cash collections from journal renewals, impacting free cash flow timing. The company faces ongoing challenges…Read full documentShow less
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Adjusted Revenue: Flat to prior year, up 1% including currency impact. Research Revenue Growth: 4% increase with 11% output growth. AI Revenue Growth: Increased from $40 million to $49 million. Adjusted EBITDA Margin: Increased by 220 basis points to 26.2%. Adjusted Operating Margin: Increased by 260 basis points to 17.7%. Adjusted EPS Growth: Increased by 15%. Free Cash Flow: Up 55% to $195 million. Shareholder Returns: $174 million returned, including $100 million in share repurchases. Net Debt Ratio: Reduced to 1.4, with pro forma leverage at 2.1 after Emerald acquisition. Emerald Acquisition: $450 million, expected to be accretive to EPS in year one. Q4 Revenue: Flat on a constant currency basis. Q4 Adjusted EBITDA Growth: 17% increase with 480 basis points margin improvement. Research Publishing Q4 Growth: 5% increase. Learning Q4 Academic Revenue: Down 5% on a constant currency basis. Learning Q4 Professional Revenue: Down 10%. Corporate Expenses Reduction: Down 22% in Q4. Fiscal '27 Outlook: Organic revenue growth expected at low to mid-single digits. Fiscal '27 Adjusted EPS: Expected between $4.60 to $5.05. Fiscal '27 Free Cash Flow: Expected at $205 million. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Sign with WLY. Is WLY fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: June 16, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. John Wiley & Sons Inc (NYSE:WLY) delivered record margins and exceptional cash flow growth in fiscal 2026. The company accelerated its leadership position in the AI economy with transformational AI partnerships and strategic acquisitions. Research Publishing saw mid-single-digit growth with strong recurring revenue and market share gains. AI revenue grew significantly from $40 million to $49 million, with a rapidly expanding recurring base. The acquisition of Emerald Publishing is expected to be accretive to earnings and free cash flow, enhancing Wiley's scale and content advantage. Adjusted revenue was flat year-over-year, with learning headwinds being a primary challenge. The Learning segment faced revenue declines due to market-related challenges and softer print revenue. There were delays in cash collections from journal renewals, impacting free cash flow timing. The company faces ongoing challenges in the retail environment, particularly with Amazon's inventory practices. Emerald acquisition is expected to be modestly dilutive to free cash flow in the first year due to integration costs and interest expenses. Q: Can you crystallize your outlook for AI-related revenue in fiscal '27, particularly regarding monetization of proprietary content, partnerships, and recurring revenue growth? A: Craig Albright, Executive Vice President and CFO, stated that they expect AI revenue to exceed $50 million, with a significant shift from non-recurring to recurring revenue, projected to grow 2 to 3 times from the $8 million seen this past year. They are confident in the momentum of their database solutions, audience solutions, and applied research intelligence, which will be further detailed at their fiscal '27 Investor Day. Q: Regarding the Emerald acquisition, what is the expected growth profile, and how does it fit into your broader AI strategy? A: Matthew Kissner, President and CEO, explained that Emerald is expected to grow at mid-single digits, aligning with Wiley's Research Publishing business. Strategically, it strengthens Wiley's presence in finance and economics, enhancing their AI value propositions in these disciplines. Additionally, Emerald's limited US footprint presents potential revenue synergies. Q: How do you expect EBITDA margins to evolve in fiscal '27, considering the Emerald acquisition and other factors? A: Craig Albright noted that while Emerald will contribute to margin expansion over time, the focus for fiscal '27 is on integrating the businesses. Margin improvements will also come from technology transformation, organizational efficiency, and AI productivity gains. They anticipate $30 million in cost synergies from Emerald by year three. Q: Can you provide an outlook for the Learning segment, particularly in courseware, Academic and Professional Publishing, and assessments? A: Craig Albright mentioned that while they don't guide specific segments, they expect improvement in fiscal '27 due to stronger frontline productivity, stabilization in Amazon's inventory practices, and growth in digital courseware. The segment is not a primary growth engine but is expected to improve materially. Q: What caused the delayed cash collections around renewals, and do you expect this to continue? A: Craig Albright explained that the delay was due to some large renewals being pushed to the end of the fiscal year, affecting cash collections but not revenue. This is not seen as a trend, and they expect to catch up in the first quarter. Q: Why is the Emerald acquisition modestly dilutive to cash flow in year one, and what are the expectations beyond? A: Craig Albright stated that the $15 million dilution is due to a combination of EBITDA contribution, restructuring, integration costs, and interest. They expect CapEx to normalize and focus on product development, with Emerald becoming free cash flow accretive in fiscal '28. Q: How do you plan to allocate capital following the Emerald acquisition, particularly regarding share repurchases? A: Craig Albright emphasized a balanced approach, prioritizing organic investment and maintaining a comfortable leverage range. They remain interested in share repurchases, considering the current undervaluation of their stock, while also focusing on returning excess cash to shareholders through dividends. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-06-16John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Q4 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Moby
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Q4 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management characterizes fiscal 2026 as a 'breakout year' defined by record margins and the execution of a 'flywheel' strategy where research publishing feeds AI data needs, while AI tools enhance research productivity. Research performance was driven by 11% output growth and 25% submission growth, which management notes significantly outpaced the industry average of 6% to 8%. The company is pivoting from a pure content provider to a high-value intelligence partner, leveraging proprietary 'hidden gems' like clinical outcome assessments (COAs) which grew 68% this year. Strategic positioning in AI is built on a 'capital-light' model that prioritizes partnerships with LLM developers and corporations over building and defending costly proprietary platforms. The acquisition of Emerald Publishing is framed as a move to secure a 'powerhouse' position in social sciences, economics, and finance, while providing a high-margin recurring revenue stream. Operational improvements were driven by a tech transformation that reduced corporate expenses by 15% for the full year and shifted focus toward product development over legacy maintenance. Fiscal 2027 guidance assumes organic revenue growth of low to mid-single digits, with research specifically expected to grow at mid-single digits. Management expects AI revenue to exceed 50 million in fiscal 2027, with a strategic shift toward recurring revenue models projected to grow 2x to 3x over the prior year. The Emerald acquisition is expected to be modestly accretive to adjusted EPS in year 1 and free cash flow accretive by year 2, with 30 million in cost synergies targeted by year 3. Capital expenditure is projected to normalize to 80 million in fiscal 2027 as the company reinvests in product development for its three AI growth vectors: database solutions, applied intelligence, and audience monetization. Learning segment trends are expected to improve in fiscal 2027 following the lapping of Amazon's inventory practice changes and a shift toward digital courseware and inclusive access. The company expanded its credit facility by 300 million to a total of 1.6 billion to support the Emerald acquisition and future strategic flexibility. Free cash flow in fiscal 2026 was moderated…Read full documentShow less
Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management characterizes fiscal 2026 as a 'breakout year' defined by record margins and the execution of a 'flywheel' strategy where research publishing feeds AI data needs, while AI tools enhance research productivity. Research performance was driven by 11% output growth and 25% submission growth, which management notes significantly outpaced the industry average of 6% to 8%. The company is pivoting from a pure content provider to a high-value intelligence partner, leveraging proprietary 'hidden gems' like clinical outcome assessments (COAs) which grew 68% this year. Strategic positioning in AI is built on a 'capital-light' model that prioritizes partnerships with LLM developers and corporations over building and defending costly proprietary platforms. The acquisition of Emerald Publishing is framed as a move to secure a 'powerhouse' position in social sciences, economics, and finance, while providing a high-margin recurring revenue stream. Operational improvements were driven by a tech transformation that reduced corporate expenses by 15% for the full year and shifted focus toward product development over legacy maintenance. Fiscal 2027 guidance assumes organic revenue growth of low to mid-single digits, with research specifically expected to grow at mid-single digits. Management expects AI revenue to exceed 50 million in fiscal 2027, with a strategic shift toward recurring revenue models projected to grow 2x to 3x over the prior year. The Emerald acquisition is expected to be modestly accretive to adjusted EPS in year 1 and free cash flow accretive by year 2, with 30 million in cost synergies targeted by year 3. Capital expenditure is projected to normalize to 80 million in fiscal 2027 as the company reinvests in product development for its three AI growth vectors: database solutions, applied intelligence, and audience monetization. Learning segment trends are expected to improve in fiscal 2027 following the lapping of Amazon's inventory practice changes and a shift toward digital courseware and inclusive access. The company expanded its credit facility by 300 million to a total of 1.6 billion to support the Emerald acquisition and future strategic flexibility. Free cash flow in fiscal 2026 was moderated by late journal renewal signings that shifted some cash collections from Q4 into Q1 of fiscal 2027. Management is monitoring upcoming IP copyright court decisions, believing they will validate the value of proprietary content in the AI ecosystem. The Virtusa partnership is a key structural driver for reducing technical debt and shifting tech spend from 33% on product development toward a goal of 50% to 60%. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Management confirmed a shift from non-recurring training revenue to recurring subscription models, targeting over 50 million in total AI revenue for fiscal 2027. The 50 million figure is described as a baseline, though management noted uncertainty remains regarding the timing of discrete, non-recurring training deals. Emerald provides a scale play in finance and economics where Wiley previously had less depth, and offers a clear growth path in North America where Emerald currently only generates 15% of its revenue. The integration will utilize Wiley's existing ResearchXchange platform to onboard Emerald's 500 journals efficiently. Management expects to lap the negative impact of Amazon's inventory practices by August 2026, leading to improved year-over-year comparisons in the second half of fiscal 2027. The segment is being refocused on 'frontlist' productivity and digital courseware to offset continued softness in consumer and corporate spending.
Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-06-16Research and AI Momentum, Record Margins, and Cash Flow Growth Highlight Wiley's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026 Results
Business Wire
Research and AI Momentum, Record Margins, and Cash Flow Growth Highlight Wiley's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026 Results
HOBOKEN, N.J., June 16, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wiley (NYSE: WLY), a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning, today reported results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended April 30, 2026. Fiscal 2026 Highlights GAAP performance vs. prior year: Revenue of $1,677 is flat including impact of divestitures; Operating Income of $277 million vs. $221 million (+25%); and Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS) of $4.16 vs. $1.53 Adjusted Results at constant currency: Adjusted Revenue of $1,677 million vs. $1,660 million (+1% or flat at constant currency) with Research growth offset by market-related softness in Learning; Adjusted Operating Income of $296 million up 18% with margin expanding by 260 basis points to a record 17.7%; Adjusted EBITDA of $440 million up 10% with margin expanding by 220 basis points to 26.2%; Adjusted EPS rose 15% to $4.19 Research momentum: Delivered 5% revenue growth or 4% at constant currency and over 100 basis points of Adjusted EBITDA margin improvement; after fiscal year-end, acquired Emerald Publishing to increase scale in Research and proprietary content advantage in AI economy, and appointed new leader in Research AI and data analytics momentum: Delivered $49 million of AI revenue (+23%) with recurring revenue rapidly scaling; appointed Chief AI and Data Analytics Officer; early lead in life sciences and healthcare AI with landmark partnerships and corporate customer signings; lifetime AI revenue surpassed $110 million Continued cash flow growth: Operating Cash Flow of $261 million (+29%) and Free Cash Flow of $195 million (+55%) driven by higher cash earnings and lower capex moderated by late renewal signings impacting the timing of cash collection Record return to shareholders: Returned record $174 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, including $100 million of repurchases, and raised dividend for 32nd consecutive year Management Commentary "Fiscal 2026 was Wiley’s breakout year," said Matthew Kissner, President and CEO. "We accelerated our two reinforcing growth engines — Research and AI and data analytics – while delivering record margins and a significant step change in Free Cash Flow. Research delivered mid-single digit growth on record submissions and output, and the recent acquisition of Emerald Publishing…Read full documentShow less
HOBOKEN, N.J., June 16, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wiley (NYSE: WLY), a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning, today reported results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended April 30, 2026. Fiscal 2026 Highlights GAAP performance vs. prior year: Revenue of $1,677 is flat including impact of divestitures; Operating Income of $277 million vs. $221 million (+25%); and Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS) of $4.16 vs. $1.53 Adjusted Results at constant currency: Adjusted Revenue of $1,677 million vs. $1,660 million (+1% or flat at constant currency) with Research growth offset by market-related softness in Learning; Adjusted Operating Income of $296 million up 18% with margin expanding by 260 basis points to a record 17.7%; Adjusted EBITDA of $440 million up 10% with margin expanding by 220 basis points to 26.2%; Adjusted EPS rose 15% to $4.19 Research momentum: Delivered 5% revenue growth or 4% at constant currency and over 100 basis points of Adjusted EBITDA margin improvement; after fiscal year-end, acquired Emerald Publishing to increase scale in Research and proprietary content advantage in AI economy, and appointed new leader in Research AI and data analytics momentum: Delivered $49 million of AI revenue (+23%) with recurring revenue rapidly scaling; appointed Chief AI and Data Analytics Officer; early lead in life sciences and healthcare AI with landmark partnerships and corporate customer signings; lifetime AI revenue surpassed $110 million Continued cash flow growth: Operating Cash Flow of $261 million (+29%) and Free Cash Flow of $195 million (+55%) driven by higher cash earnings and lower capex moderated by late renewal signings impacting the timing of cash collection Record return to shareholders: Returned record $174 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, including $100 million of repurchases, and raised dividend for 32nd consecutive year Management Commentary "Fiscal 2026 was Wiley’s breakout year," said Matthew Kissner, President and CEO. "We accelerated our two reinforcing growth engines — Research and AI and data analytics – while delivering record margins and a significant step change in Free Cash Flow. Research delivered mid-single digit growth on record submissions and output, and the recent acquisition of Emerald Publishing further extends our scale and proprietary content advantage in the AI economy. AI revenue grew double digits to nearly $50 million with a rapidly expanding recurring stream, anchored by landmark partnerships with IQVIA and OpenEvidence and a growing roster of corporate customers. With momentum across both growth engines and a proven playbook, we enter Fiscal 2027 with our strongest conviction yet." Q4 Financial Summary Please see accompanying financial tables for more detail on fourth quarter and full year results. Q4 reported revenue of $448 million (+1% as reported, flat at constant currency, or CC) Q4 Diluted EPS of $2.61 (+109%); Adjusted EPS +22% (CC) to $1.67 and Adjusted EBITDA +17% (CC) to $149 million with margin up 480 basis points to 33.2%. Research Segment Q4 Research revenue of $296 million was up 5% as reported and 4% (CC), with Research Publishing up 5% (CC) largely driven by strong growth in gold open access and AI licensing. This was partially offset by a 4% decline (CC) in Research Solutions due to a soft recruitment market. Q4 Adjusted EBITDA of $111 million was up 13% (CC). Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter rose 300 basis points to 37.7%. Full year Research revenue of $1,130 million was up 5% as reported and 4% CC, driven by growth in recurring revenue models (subscriptions and transformational agreements), gold open access, and AI licensing. Growth trends remained favorable, with submissions and output up significantly. Full year Adjusted EBITDA of $375 million was up 8% (CC). Adjusted EBITDA margin for the year rose 110 basis points to 33.2%. Learning Segment Q4 Learning revenue of $152 million was down 6% as reported and 7% (CC) reflecting lower AI licensing revenue in Academic and Professional, macro headwinds, and retail channel softness. Q4 Adjusted EBITDA of $70 million was down 1% (CC). Adjusted EBITDA margin was up 310 basis points to 46.1%, driven by cost discipline and favorable mix. Full year Learning revenue of $547 million was down 7% as reported and at constant currency due to macro headwinds, retail channel softness, and lower AI licensing revenue. Learning Adjusted EBITDA of $208 million for the year was down 6% (CC). Adjusted EBITDA margin rose 60 basis points to 38.0% on continued cost actions. Corporate Expenses "Corporate Expenses" are the portion of shared services costs not allocated to segments. Q4 Corporate Expenses on an Adjusted EBITDA basis declined 21% as reported and 22% at constant currency on technology transformation and continued restructuring savings, contributing to Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in the quarter. Full year Corporate Expenses on an Adjusted EBITDA basis declined 14% on a reported basis and 15% at constant currency. Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, and Capital Allocation Net Debt-to-EBITDA ratio improved to 1.4x compared to 1.8x in the year-ago period, reflecting higher Adjusted EBITDA and lower net debt of $608 million vs. $714 million due to settlement from a prior divestiture. Net Cash provided by Operating Activities was $261 million (+29%), driven by higher Adjusted EBITDA, lower restructuring payments, and reduced retirement obligations. Free Cash Flow was up 55% to $195 million primarily driven by higher operating cash flow and lower capex. Note that Free Cash Flow was moderated by late renewal signings impacting the timing of cash collection. Fiscal 2026 capex was $65 million vs. $77 million in the prior year. Returns to Shareholders: Wiley allocated $174 million toward dividends and share repurchases, up from $137 million in the prior year. $100 million was allocated to share repurchases, up from $60 million in the prior-year period, and the dividend was raised for the 32nd consecutive year. New Business Leaders Wiley strengthened its leadership team this year to accelerate its AI and Research strategy. In January 2026, Armughan Rafat joined as Chief AI and Data Analytics Officer, a newly created role on the Executive Leadership Team, to lead the commercialization of AI-ready content and data products for AI developers and corporate R&D teams. Rafat previously served as Chief Analytics Officer at Norstella and Chief Data Officer at Clarivate. In May 2026, Jessica Kowalski joined Wiley as Executive Vice President and General Manager, Research, succeeding Jay Flynn. Kowalski joins from Microsoft and brings more than two decades of experience across research publishing and AI-enabled businesses, including prior senior roles at Amazon Web Services and RELX. Fiscal 2027 Outlook Organic Revenue Growth - driven by expected core growth in Research, improvement in Learning, and another strong year in AI and data analytics Adjusted EBITDA Margin – reflecting anticipated cost savings and ongoing efficiency gains balanced with high-return, sustainable growth investment Adjusted EPS – growth expectation driven by higher expected Adjusted Operating Income Free Cash Flow – driven by expected cash earnings growth partially offset by year 1 dilution from Emerald ($15M), higher capex ($80M vs. $65M in FY26), expected restructuring costs, and higher cash taxes Earnings Conference Call Scheduled for today, June 16 at 10:00 am (ET). Access webcast at Investor Relations at investors.wiley.com, or directly at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/978555203. North American callers, please dial (833) 461-5787 and enter the meeting ID: 373431738. International callers, please dial (585) 542-9983 and enter the meeting ID: 373431738. About Wiley Wiley (NYSE: WLY) is a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation, and learning. With more than 200 years at the center of the scholarly ecosystem, Wiley combines trusted publishing heritage with AI-powered platforms to transform how knowledge is discovered, accessed, and applied. From individual researchers and students to Fortune 500 R&D teams, Wiley enables the transformation of scientific breakthroughs into real-world impact. From knowledge to impact—Wiley is redefining what's possible in science and learning. Visit us at Wiley.com and Investors.Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram Non-GAAP Financial Measures Wiley provides non-GAAP financial measures and performance results such as "Adjusted EPS," "Adjusted Operating Income," "Adjusted EBITDA," "Adjusted Income before Taxes," "Adjusted Income Tax Provision," "Adjusted Effective Income Tax Rate," "Free Cash Flow less Product Development Spending," "organic revenue," "Adjusted Revenue," and results on a Constant Currency basis to assess underlying business performance and trends. Management believes non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude the impact of restructuring charges and credits and certain other items, and the impact of divestitures and acquisitions provide a useful comparable basis to analyze operating results and earnings. See the reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and explanations of the uses of non-GAAP measures in the supplementary information. We have not provided our 2027 outlook for the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures, as they are not available without unreasonable effort due to the high variability, complexity, and low visibility with respect to certain items, including restructuring charges and credits, gains and losses on foreign currency, and other gains and losses. These items are uncertain, depend on various factors, and could be material to our consolidated results computed in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Forward-Looking Statements This release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning the Company's operations, performance, and financial condition. Reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, as actual results may differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements. Any such forward-looking statements are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that are inherently subject to uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of the Company and are subject to change based on many important factors. Such factors include, but are not limited to: (i) the level of investment in new technologies and products; (ii) subscriber renewal rates for the Company's journals; (iii) the financial stability and liquidity of journal subscription agents; (iv) the consolidation of book wholesalers and retail accounts; (v) the market position and financial stability of key online retailers; (vi) the seasonal nature of the Company's educational business and the impact of the used book market; (vii) worldwide economic and political conditions; (viii) the Company's ability to protect its copyrights and other intellectual property worldwide (ix) the ability of the Company to successfully integrate acquired operations and realize expected synergies and opportunities; (x) the ability to realize operating savings over time and in fiscal year 2027 in connection with our multiyear Global Restructuring Program and completed dispositions; (xi) cyber risk and the failure to maintain the integrity of our operational or security systems or infrastructure, or those of third parties with which we do business; (xii) as a result of acquisitions, we have and may record a significant amount of goodwill and other identifiable intangible assets and we may never realize the full carrying value of these assets; and (xiii) other factors detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events. Category: Corporate News/ Earnings Releases View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260616444615/en/ Contacts Brian [email protected] Andrea [email protected]

