News Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Vera Bradley EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.33
• Consensus EPS: $0.34
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Vera Bradley Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Vera Bradley Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 2/5/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Vera Bradley (NASDAQ:VRA), together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells women's handbags, luggage and travel items, fashion and home accessories, and gifts. It operates through three segments: Vera Bradley Direct, Vera Bradley Indirect, and Pura Vida. The company offers bag products, such as totes, crossbodies, satchels, clutches, backpacks, baby bags, and lunch bags; accessories, including ID holders, lanyards, wallets, wristlets, eyewear, scarves, hair accessories, and various technology accessories; bracelets, rings, and necklaces under Pura Vida brand name; and travel products consist of rolling luggage, cosmetics, and travel and packing accessories, as well as travel bags comprising duffel and weekend bags. It also provides home products that include throw blankets, beach towels, and comforters, as well as items, such as mugs and tumblers; apparel/footwear comprising sleepwear, footwear, outerwear, tees and hoodies, and socks; and stationery and merchandising products, as well as freight, licensing, and gift card breakage services. The company sells its Vera Bradley branded products through its full-line and outlet stores in the United States; verabradley.com, an online outlet site; its annual outlet sale in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It sells its Pura Vida branded products through wholesale retailers and Pura Vida websites, including www.puravidabracelets.com, www.puravidabracelets.eu, and www.puravidabracelets.ca; and Vera Bradley Indirect branded products to specialty retail locations, department stores, national accounts, third party e-commerce sites, third-party inventory liquidators, and through licensing agreements. Vera Bradley, Inc. was incorporated in 1982 and is headquartered in Roanoke, Indiana.

News Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the News Corp's second quarter fiscal twenty twenty five earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. Media will be allowed on a listen only basis. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Michael Florin, senior vice president and head of investor relations. Please go ahead.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you very much, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to News Corp's fiscal second quarter two thousand twenty five earnings call. We issued our earnings press release about thirty minutes ago, and it's now posted on our website at newscorp.com. On the call today are Robert Thompson, chief executive, and Lavinia Chandrasekhar, chief financial officer. We opened some prepared remarks.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

They'll be happy to take questions from the investment community. This call may include certain forward looking information with respect to News Corp's business and strategy. Actual results could differ materially from what is said. News Corp's form 10 ks and form 10 q filings identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ and contain cautionary statements regarding forward looking information. Additionally, this call will include certain non GAAP financial measurements such as total segment EBITDA, adjusted segment EBITDA and adjusted EPS.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

The definitions and GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations of such measures can be found in the earnings releases for the applicable periods posted on our website. With that, I will pass it over to Robert Thompson for some opening comments.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Thank you, Mike. News Corp had yet another fruitful quarter qualitatively and quantitatively. Revenues on a continuing operations basis, which excludes Foxtel, grew 5% to $2,240,000,000 while profitability rose 20% to $478,000,000 as we made significant progress in our digital development. A few more metrics to highlight our performance. Net income from continuing operations surged to $3.00 $6,000,000 a 58% increase compared to the same quarter in the previous year.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

That is correct, 58%. While our EPS from continuing operations was $0.4 compared to $0.28 in the prior quarter. And our overall margin rose from 18.7% to 21.4%. Our three pillars of growth, Digital Real Estate, Dow Jones and Book Publishing continued to expand their segment EBITDA robustly, while we saw the positive impact of rigorous cost discipline and digital development in our News Media segment. With a keen eye on our innate strengths, we took a significant step towards simplification with the agreement to sell Foxtel to DAZN, a premier global sports streaming provider, for a total enterprise value of Australian $3,400,000,000 or approximately seven times Foxtel's fiscal twenty twenty four EBITDA.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

The agreement is a tangible recognition of Foxtel's successful digital transformation and should surely benefit our shareholders, our partners at DAZN, and all Australian sports fans. We expect the transaction to close in the second half of the current fiscal year, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Hence, Foxtel financials are now reported as discontinued operations. The sale of Foxtel should have a meaningful impact on our balance sheet. Upon closing, Foxtel's outstanding shareholder loans will be repaid in full, including AUD $574,000,000 to News Corp, while its third party debt will be transferred with the business.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

News Corp will also hold an approximate six percent stake in the fast growing DAZN. We are proud to be long term partners with the DAZN team and see material value upside potential in the growth of a company that is at the cutting edge of international sports development. I encourage all to download their app and delve into a vast range of sports. In the wake of this important deal, we were delighted that both S and P Global and Moody's upgraded our credit rating to investment grade, reflecting the impact of our long term strategy of focused investment and an emphasis on the return of invested capital. We certainly lead the way in providing priceless content for generative AI and remain vigilant in our pursuit of degenerative AI and abuses of our intellectual property.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

We are pleased with our partnership with OpenAI and hope that other companies in the segment take a similarly enlightened approach. Our legal action against the perplexing perplexity is underway, and we look forward with relish to document discovery. We firmly believe that this discovery process will be an important phase, not just for us, but for all who cherish the sanctity of IP. The sudden rise of DeepSeek is itself a solitary lesson for all AI players. If they are unable to host fresh, trusted news, their version of AI will lack immediacy and relevance.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Data centers and energy sources and newfangled chips may well be essential AI infrastructure, but ultimately, we believe content will be king in the world of AI. One rather general generic post election observation. We are seeing a tangible increase in business confidence here in The U. S. Since the election, the temporary turmoil of transactional tariffs aside.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

There is the confluence of economic optimism and a cultural awakening with the yoke of woke having been lifted. We believe these trends should lead to less superfluous, gratuitous regulation, greater capital formation, increased opportunities for all Americans and more candid, creative, compelling conversations. Hopefully, an era of censorship and self censorship is receding into the distance. As for specific segments, digital real estate revenue increased 13% to $473,000,000 and segment EBITDA burgeoned 26% to $185,000,000 That strength came despite significant growth in the prior year quarter at REA and reflected renewed revenue growth at realtor.com despite the still hostile housing market conditions in The U. S, with the thirty year mortgage rates above 7% in recent weeks.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Clearly, Realtor.com's efforts to strengthen adjacent revenue streams are paying off with accelerated growth in rental, seller and new homes revenues. Realtor continues to make significant progress in engagement as evidenced by the highest repeat visitation and most number of views per visit in the industry in December as per Comscore. At REA, the success story continues as the company achieved a quarterly record in revenue while extending its audience leadership and reinforcing its position as Australia's preeminent property site. REA achieved 129,000,000 average monthly visits during the quarter, nearly four times more than the nearest competitor on average. Listing volumes rose 4% with yield growth at 14%, while our India division continued to post healthy revenue growth.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

At Dow Jones, revenue grew 3% to $600,000,000 Segment EBITDA expanded 7% to $174,000,000 and margins rose an impressive 110 basis points. While overall performance in the first half of the fiscal year has been strong, we expect year over year growth to increase in the second half of the year. In Q2, digital circulation revenue grew year over year at its fastest pace in two years as digital ARPU improved sequentially and the conversion from introductory promotions and digital bundle offers ran ahead of expectations. Readers derive significant value from our prestige portfolio of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, IBD and MarketWatch. And we believe there is potential for revenue improvement as we emphasize the strength and the distinctiveness of individual titles.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Risk and Compliance and Dow Jones Energy reported revenue growth of 1110%, respectively. And the teams continue to benefit from new products such as Advanced Screening and Monitoring and Analytics Pro that add meaningful value for our compliance focused risk averse clients. New initiatives contributed about one third of B2B revenue growth this quarter. Now more than ever, Dow Jones risk and compliance clients are navigating rapidly changing regulations and sanctions. This complex environment in The U.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

S. And globally boosts demand for risk and compliance products as organizations rely on our expert insights and comprehensive data to make informed decisions and to stay compliant. The uncertainty regarding the transactional tariffs is driving demand for Dow Jones Energy's insights and forecasting services as clients seek to understand the potential impact on global energy markets and investment opportunities. Book Publishing reported yet another exceptional quarter with revenue expanding 8% to $595,000,000 and segment EBITDA surging 19% to 101,000,000 Growth in the quarter was powered by strong Bible sales, a sterling performance at Harbour College UK and a healthy mix of titles. Margins improved thanks to buoyant sales of backlist books and a particularly noteworthy 13% increase in audio revenue.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Among the bestsellers, the Pumpkin Spice Cafe and the first volume of Cher's memoirs were standouts. The successful cinematic release of Wicked has led to strong sales of Gregory Maguire's four book series, and we anticipate a further boost from the next installment in that series. The positive cycle should continue with the release of the hit film sequel later this calendar year. At News Media, revenue fell a modest 2% to $570,000,000 but segment EBITDA grew an impressive 30% to $74,000,000 Success in the quarter was driven by the transition of Talk in The UK to streaming and our commercial printing partnership with DMG as well as reduced costs at News Australia. Overall ad trends moderated while The Times posted its largest quarterly net additions of paid digital subscriptions in two years.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Digital advertising grew by 13% at the New York Post where profitability was also assisted by our OpenAI deal. News media generally has clearly benefited from those OpenAI revenues, and we are pleased with the progress in our partnership with Sam Altman and his exceptional colleagues. Content is but one part of a broad deal. And for example, our legal and government affairs teams are swapping ideas and experiences as we negotiate the nuances of AI. As part of our partnership, news call content will be featured in OpenAI's new operator product, ensuring prominence for our journalism in the burgeoning world of agentic AI.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Both companies are striving to ensure that the A in AI does not stand for anarchy and alphabetic or absurdity. In a world in which so many media companies and mastheads are in terminal decline, Our business is thriving, thanks certainly to the diligent and creative work of our talented teams and the savvy strategic guidance of Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch and our astute Board of Directors. Speaking of talent, I am honored to introduce our new chief financial officer, Lavanya Chandrasekhar, who will eloquently expand on the exegesis.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Thank you, Robert, for the kind introduction. I am delighted to be with all of you today and look forward to meeting many of you in the coming months. I'm excited to join News Corp amid the company's continued impressive digital evolution. As Robert mentioned in December, we announced an agreement to sell Foxtel to DAZN, which for News Corp will allow for a greater focus on our core growth pillars, will meaningfully strengthen our balance sheet, and should reduce our future capital intensity. Turning to the quarter, Foxtel's financial results are reflected as discontinued operations for fiscal twenty twenty five and twenty twenty four second quarter and year to date periods, and subscription video service is no longer a reportable segment.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

I will not speak to Foxtel's results on this call, and they are excluded from the numbers I will be discussing today. But more information will be available in the 10 q to be filed tomorrow morning. We will also be filing an eight k with recast historic financial information. News Corp reported fiscal second quarter revenues on a continuing operation basis of $2,200,000,000, rising 5% year over year, and total segment EBITDA of $478,000,000, increasing 20% year over year. Margins improved by nearly 270 basis points to 21.4%.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

The three core pillars, Dow Jones, Digital Real Estate, and Book Publishing, collectively grew revenue by 7% and segment EBITDA by 16%. Second quarter adjusted revenues rose 4% compared to the prior year with the difference from reported primarily due to currency impact, while adjusted total segment EBITDA rose 20% versus the prior year. For the quarter, we reported earnings from continuing operations per share of 40¢ compared to 28¢ in the prior year. Adjusted earnings from continuing operations per share were 33¢ in the quarter compared to 27¢ in the prior year. Moving to the individual segments, starting with Dow Jones.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Dow Jones reported revenues of $600,000,000, up 3% year over year similar to the first quarter and was, again, the largest segment contributor to overall company revenue. Digital revenue accounted for 81% of total Dow Jones segment revenue this quarter, improving three percentage points from last year. Overall, professional information business revenue, which reflects our b to b products, rose 4% year over year, notwithstanding an over 300 basis point adverse impact from Factiva, primarily due to the ongoing customer dispute that we mentioned last quarter, with the impact greater in the second quarter. This quarter, the growth came from new customers, new products, and improved yield at risk and compliance, which grew 11% to $80,000,000 including a modest negative FX impact due to European exposure, and Dow Jones Energy, which grew 10% to $68,000,000 with customer retention remaining very strong at over 90%. During the quarter, risk and compliance enhanced its product offerings with the acquisition of World ECR, a London based provider of export control and trade sanction news.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

And in energy, we continue to see strong demand for newer products associated with carbon, retail fuels, and liquefied petroleum gas, and experienced robust pipelines and strong closing rates. Within the Dow Jones consumer business, circulation revenues rose 3% versus the prior year, benefiting from improved digital circulation revenues of 8%, double the quarter one rate, and the highest quarterly growth in two years. We have started to benefit from the conversion to higher pricing from our digital subscriptions added in the past year via introductory promotional offers. Digital ARPU also increased quarter over quarter. Digital circulation revenues accounted for 73% of circulation revenues for the quarter, up from 70% in the prior year.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Digital only subscriptions improved by 13% year over year and by 27,000 sequentially, negatively impacted by the phasing of marketing promotions and seasonality, particularly related to students and some industry headwinds from search algorithms. That said, we do expect stronger volumes in the third quarter. Bundling subscriptions for the quarter improved by 45% year over year to over 950,000 while also benefiting from improved yield with the focus on the three product bundle of Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, and Barron's. Print volume declined by 16% year over year, but its sequential decline was the lowest since the fourth quarter of fiscal twenty twenty one. Advertising revenue of a hundred and $21,000,000 moderated from the prior quarter to a decline of 4% year over year as print declined 10% with digital flat, an improvement from the first quarter.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Digital represented 64% of advertising revenues, up from 62% last year. Dow Jones segment EBITDA for the quarter grew 7% to a hundred and $74,000,000 with margins increasing to 29%. Moving on to digital real estate. Digital real estate had another exceptional quarter with segment revenues of $473,000,000, up 13% versus the prior year and 12% on an adjusted basis. Segment EBITDA was a hundred and $85,000,000, up 26% driven by higher profit contribution from REA Group, the highest growth since 2021.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Adjusted segment EBITDA grew 25%. REA had an outstanding quarter with revenues rising 17% year on year to $343,000,000, marking its highest ever quarterly revenue on record. Growth was again driven by a combination of residential yield increases, continued strong growth in national listings, and customer contract upgrades. Residential yield growth improved by 14. New buy listings rose approximately 4% with Sydney and Melbourne each up 2%.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Please refer to REA's earnings release and their conference call for more details. Realtor's revenue for the quarter of a hundred and 30 million dollars were up 2% compared to the prior year, marking the first year over year improvement since the fourth quarter of fiscal twenty twenty two. At realtor, real estate revenues were essentially flat as lower referral and lead generation revenues were largely offset by accelerating growth from adjacencies. Lead volumes fell 2% while average monthly unique users for the quarter fell 6% year over year to 62,000,000 at realtor.com. However, Realtor continues to maintain strong audience share despite much higher competitive marketing spend, underscoring the strength and quality of their audience.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Realtor also continued to show strong traction on new revenues as seller, new home, and rentals represented 20% of revenues, and we anticipate continued strong growth in these adjacencies going forward this fiscal year. At book publishing, momentum from the prior year continued with the year over year growth improving from first quarter with revenues of $595,000,000, up 8%, while segment EBITDA improved by 19% to a hundred and $1,000,000. Margins expanded by a 50 basis points to 17% as positive operating leverage was underpinned by strong digital and backlist performance. We saw strong growth in Christian publishing from higher Bible sales and very strong sales in The UK as Robert mentioned. Harper continued to benefit from strong physical book orders and continued robust audiobook growth across all regions.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

HarperCollins posted digital revenues of a hundred and $20,000,000, increasing 9% from the prior year, driven by strong audiobook growth across all regions, including increased adoption at Spotify and increased performance from Audible. In total, digital sales represented 21% of consumer revenue in line with the prior year. Audiobooks grew 13% year over year, a slower rate than quarter one as we began to lap the initial rollout from Spotify in The UK, Australia, and US. The backlist contributed 61% of consumer revenues, up from 60% last year. Turning to news media.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Overall revenue performance improved from the first quarter with advertising declines moderating, and the segment benefited from increased cover prices and subscription pricing across mastheads. Revenues for the quarter were $570,000,000 down 2% versus the prior year, while adjusted revenues fell 3%. Note that both periods were recast to include the contribution from Sky News Australia, which previously had been included in the subscription video service segment. Sky News contributed $17,000,000 in revenues, flat compared to the prior year. Segment EBITDA showed strong improvement, rising 30% year over year driven by cost savings initiatives as we mentioned last quarter, most notably at The UK from the benefits of the commercial printing joint venture with DMG Media and lower top costs.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Adjusted segment EBITDA increased 28%. Turning to the outlook. Market trends remain mixed geographically. And given the current spot rates for the Australian dollar and pound sterling versus the US dollar, we expect currency translation to be a headwind in the second half. Some of the themes across each of our segments.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

At Dow Jones, the team remains focused on b to b growth, including upselling and new products across risk and compliance and Dow Jones Energy. As Robert mentioned, for total Dow Jones, we expect to see improvement in growth in the second half. We expect expenses to be modestly higher year over year due to investment, notably in b to b. However, we will continue to focus on cost efficiencies to drive growth. At Digital Real Estate, Australian residential new buy listings for January were up three percent.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Refer to REA for more detailed outlook commentary. Realtor.com will continue to focus on technology improvements and enhance content and product offerings with the goal to be best positioned to drive share when the housing market recovers. We hope to see some revenue improvement, notably from continued growth from adjacencies, but continue to monitor macro trends. We currently expect the rate of reinvestment to be modestly higher in the second half as we continue to focus on growth initiatives. At book publishing, as mentioned last quarter, we hope to see further profit improvement in fiscal twenty twenty five, albeit likely at a much more modest rate due to difficult prior year comparisons, and quarter three will be impacted by facing a front list releases.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

At News Media, while we expect the segment to continue to benefit from lower talk TV cost together with savings associated with the new commercial printing joint venture with DMG in The UK, advertising conditions remain difficult with limited visibility and coupled with forex headwinds, we anticipate a more challenging second half. As mentioned last quarter, we expect other segment costs to be higher than last year, including ongoing AI and related legal costs. With that, let me hand it over to the operator for

[Operator]

We'll now start the q and a session. Please limit your questions to one per participant. If you've joined via the Zoom application, please use the raise hand functionality to ask a question. If you've joined via the audio line, please press 9 to raise your hand and 6 to unmute once called upon. Questions will be answered in the order they are received.

[Operator]

We'll now pause for a moment to assemble the queue. Okay. Our first question will come from David Karnovsky with JPMorgan. Please unmute your line and ask your question.

[David Karnovsky, Senior Research Analyst at JP Morgan]

Hi. Thank you. Just maybe on the Boxtel deal, want to see if you could discuss a bit, the structure here and reasoning, to take the zone equity as payment and maybe your view on the asset. And then following this, Robert, it would be great to get your updated view on the overall News Corp structure. And can you say at this point if you're still engaged in an overall strategic review?

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

David, obviously, the deal is subject to the usual regulatory approvals, in particular, out of the Foreign Investment Review Board and the ACCC in Australia, and we're providing whatever information is important agencies require. We do expect that the deal will formally close this fiscal. But I should emphasize that we will be close partners with DAZN, whose team we've found to be particularly impressive. And I think it's fair to say that they've found the Foxtel team to be particularly impressive. Essentially, you have the marriage of two world class companies, and together, there'll be more than the sum of their parts.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

As for structural reform, the Foxtel deal itself should reinforce the sense that we are constantly reviewing our portfolio. And that deal is eloquent testimony that we don't just review, we act decisively. We are conscious of maximizing returns for our shareholders and the improved returns have certainly come from buttressing of bolstering our core pillars and that is reflected in our share price, not entirely obviously, but somewhat. I'm sure you're aware that our shares have risen more than 26% over the past six months.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you, Dave. Luke, we will take our next question.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from Kane Han with Goldman Sachs. Please unmute and ask your question.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Kane?

[Kane Hannan, Deputy Head ANZ Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Morning, guys. Maybe just the comments, in the introduction, Robert, around your Dow Jones earnings growth accelerating in the second half, despite the expectations for more of its growth in the second half. Can you talk a little bit more about what's driving that? Is that the Factiva impact dropping away, improving subscriber trends you called out of the journal?

[Kane Hannan, Deputy Head ANZ Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

So let's just help us understand what gives you the confidence in the improving second half.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Well, Kane, I think it's a combination of two things. The Dow Jones circulation trends, the total subs were up 9% at around $5,900,000 digital only up 13%. And we're very focused there on average revenue per subscriber and are seeing positive trends as the Dow Jones dynamic pricing strategy unfolds. And that was reflected in the overall 3% increase in circulation revenues, despite a continuing fall in print circulation revenue, to be candid. So digital cert revenues were up 8%.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

And the Dow Jones team is generally confident that the phasing of subscribers from discounted entry level offers to more standard pricing is proceeding well, and we will see that reflected in ensuing months. And then at PIB, clearly, risk and compliance and Dow Jones Energy are both faring well, and we have full confidence in them.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

If I could just add to that, Robert. I mean, I Kane, one of the things we need to remember is that the second half generally tends to be the time when we have more additions in any case. So there is a seasonality piece there as well, which will help.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you, Kane. Luke, we'll take our next question, please.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from Jason Bazinet with Citi. Please unmute and ask your question.

[Jason Bazinet, Director at Citigroup]

Just had a a question for mister Thompson. Given that it's a a year into the Spotify deal, can you just remind us what you are hoping to achieve, with that agreement? And then based on consumer behavior sort of a year in, what lessons, if any, have you learned so far?

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Jason, we're very proud of the partnership with Spotify, which I think itself has changed the audio book market, and the broad trends there remain in place now. The audience is expanding, and audio overall was 13% higher. And, dare I say, even the ebooks were 6% higher after a couple of years of relatively sluggish sales. I think what we are seeing is a change in consumer behavior, and adaptation by both Spotify and Audible for that increased audience. And, dare I say, we are the beneficiaries of that.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you, Jason. Luke, we will take our next question, please.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from Entre Rakovsky with Evans and Partners. Please unmute and ask your question.

[Entcho Raykovski, Executive Director, Media & Telco at Evans & Partners]

Hi, Robert. Hi, Lavinia. My question is just around the expected use of the proceeds from the Foxtel sale. I appreciate the transaction is yet to close, but you'll get some money as part of the shareholder loan repayment. So do you expect that presents some scope for capital management, or is your intention to reinvest those proceeds?

[Entcho Raykovski, Executive Director, Media & Telco at Evans & Partners]

And I don't know as part of that, Ansey, if you can give us any sort of broad guidance on where you expect CapEx to trend going forward post completion of the sale? Thank you.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Well, Ancho, clearly, we are absolutely focused on generating maximum value long term for our shareholders. We have a billion dollar buyback provision in place, and you can see from our disclosures that that that buyback is well underway. As well as that, we have the dividend payments. So so we're extremely conscious of shareholder returns and returning to shareholders. I mean, last fiscal, we returned 70% of our available free cash flow through the buyback.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

And and, clearly, the significant increase in our free cash flow in recent years has given us optionality. And the upgrades to investment grade by both Moody's and S and P Global in recent days reflect that reality. But we will go on being conscious of our duty to shareholders, but we do so from a position of strength.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you, and Joe. Luke, we will take our next question, please.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from David Joyce with Seaport Research. Please unmute and ask your question.

[David Joyce, Senior Equity Analyst - Media Sector at Seaport Research Partners]

Thank you. I appreciated your outlook for the back half of the year. Could you provide some more color though on the timing of when we would be lapping the price increases at Dow Jones on the consumer and professional services side? And also, when you would expect the new products to be coming online at the REA and contributing there? Then finally, on book publishing, if you have more of an outlook over the next few quarters of significant titles that would be released, that would be drivers.

[David Joyce, Senior Equity Analyst - Media Sector at Seaport Research Partners]

Thank you.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Well, I think we've given as much guidance as we can on the likely trajectory for Dow Jones and pricing. Essentially, what you are seeing, by the way, there is the increase in digital and also which led to 81% of our revenues are being generated through digital compared to 78% last year. And secondly, the continuing influence of through the expansion of the PIP business relative to the entire business. So and the impact of that higher margin business on our profitability is quite obvious. The margin at Dow Jones rose from 27.9% to 29%.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

And there's every reason to believe in coming months and quarters and years, dare I say, that as PIB takes a larger share of revenue, that margin will continue to expand. As for the books business, we have a full roster as always at HarperCollins, the books that, Levinue and I I mentioned. But also, we we have a very strong backlist there, which is some the value of which is sometimes underestimated by certain analysts. And through the years, we have been working diligently on bolstering that backlist, which tends to be more profitable, obviously, enough. And it's not insignificant that the backlist share rose from 60% to 61% of total sales in the most recent quarter.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

That backlist is a platform for future growth.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

If I could just add to that, just to on on the on Harper. I mean, what we have guided to on the second half is that, you know, growth will be moderating because we've had more facing of this of the front list into the first half of the year. So that's just something to keep in mind.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you, David. Luke, we will take our next question, please.

[Operator]

Our next question will come from the line of Greg Huber with Huber Research. Please unmute and ask your question.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

Thank you. Robert, just wanted to ask you, as you know, you guys went public with your thoughts on optimizing the structure of the company two Novembers ago. A lot of people applaud you for what you did with with Foxtell. You're simplifying the company from that angle. I'm just curious, is the other gentleman was asking as well.

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

Is there more to go here to simplify the company? I know part of it's kind of maybe gummed up a little bit here just given the the tough US mortgage market. If you were ever gonna do anything with realtor.com, nobody would want you to potentially sell that in a lousy market. We would not optimize the value of it and so forth. But putting that issue aside, could we maybe potentially get another announcement here before maybe we get to the two year mark?

[Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners]

I just want to get sort of a sense here what we're playing with here. Is there is there more to come here on the optimizing the company? Thank you.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

Craig, we we are constantly reviewing the structure of the company. And I look, it is fair to say that the Foxtel deal itself is is hard evidence of that that that our consideration of the appropriate structure does not end with that significant decision. But there is no doubt that we have a collection of very valuable assets. And I certainly wouldn't underestimate the value of Realtor. I mean, when you look at the new growth areas there, so seller related revenues, new homes and rentals, all of which have been a focus of investment by Damien and the team, those revenues rose 51% in the quarter compared to a year earlier.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

And just one other point worth highlighting at Realtor, and this is according to .comScore, so it's independent, not one of those wonderful internal metrics used by some. Realtor has a significantly higher rate of visits per unique, page visits per unique visits than Zillow. And that's valuable. That shows that we have a quality audience. These are drive bys.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

These are not drive bys, I should say. These are customers parking the car in the garage.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you, Craig. Luke, we will take our next question, please.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Han with Morningstar. Please unmute and ask your question.

[Brian Han, Director of Equity Research at Morningstar]

Robert, just to be clear on Dow Jones, your expectation that year on year growth will accelerate in the second half, were you referring to revenue growth or earnings growth? And are there any plans to increase investment in Dow Jones going forward whether in marketing or technology? Thanks.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

We're always looking for opportunities for Dow Jones. And you can see from the investments, dare I say, sage investments made in recent years, which are now coming to fruition, that if there's an opportunity at a reasonable price, we'll pursue it. We see two areas of potential improvement from the Dow Jones team. One, we're coming into the period, as Lovanyi mentioned, of higher sales. And secondly, we are also seeing that the dynamic pricing system adopted by the team is starting to bring us benefits.

[Robert Thomson, Chief Executive at News]

So the combination of both.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you, Brian. Luke, we will take our next question, please.

[Operator]

Yes. And as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please use the raise hand feature on your screen. Our next question will come from Evan Karatsas with UBS. Please unmute and ask your question.

[Evan Karatzas, Director at UBS Group]

Okay. Good morning. Can I just ask one around the strong Dow Jones margin expansion you're delivering? Maybe, sorry, you talked about a couple of minutes ago. Can you just first just give an idea of the margin headwind from the Factiva dispute to help us get, I guess, a more normalized margin?

[Evan Karatzas, Director at UBS Group]

And then Vikan as well, is this expectation of the 100 ish basis points of quarterly margin expansion, is that around the level you'd be expecting for the rest of the year or I guess going forward just given the multiple moving parts happening there in the second half that you've spoken to? Thanks.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Thank you for your question, Evan. This is Lavanya. We're not I'm not going to be giving margin guidance for Dow Jones for the second half of the year. But to kind of talk about what the impact of Factiva was, Just on on from a revenue perspective, Factiva had more than a 300 basis point impact on revenue. And, so you can kind of do the math there on what that may have impacted from a margin perspective.

[Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO at News]

Look, in in the second half, we will continue to be disciplined on cost. We will continue to work towards improving profitability and, really focused on monetizing all the subscriptions that we added last year. And we should expect to continue to see upside in margins.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Thank you. Evan, Luke, we will take our next question.

[Operator]

At this time, we have no further questions. I will hand the call over to Michael Florin for closing remarks.

[Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations at News]

Great. Well, thank you all for participating. We look forward to speaking to you soon. Have a wonderful day. Take care.

Participants

Executives

• Michael Florin, Senior VP & Head of Investor Relations
• Robert Thomson, Chief Executive
• Lavanya Chandrashekar, CFO

Analysts

• David Karnovsky, Senior Research Analyst at JP Morgan
• Kane Hannan, Deputy Head ANZ Equity Research at Goldman Sachs
• Jason Bazinet, Director at Citigroup
• Entcho Raykovski, Executive Director, Media & Telco at Evans & Partners
• David Joyce, Senior Equity Analyst - Media Sector at Seaport Research Partners
• Craig Huber, Equity Research Analyst at Huber Research Partners
• Brian Han, Director of Equity Research at Morningstar
• Evan Karatzas, Director at UBS Group