Scholium Group, owner of Shapero Rare Books, recently announced their 2024 full-year results. If you're wondering how they know their 2024 results already, Scholium doesn't use a calendar year. Their financial year runs from April 1-March 30, so their 2024 results actually include the last nine months of 2023 and only the first three months of 2024.
For those unfamiliar with the Scholium set up, Scholium group consists of four entities, Scholium Group, a holding company for the three other entities, Shapero Rare Books, Scholium Trading, and Mayfair Philatelic. However, the latter two are now inactive, so effectively, Scholium and Shapero are the same.
They reported sales were up 2.3%, to £9,266,000 (approximately $12,250,000 in U.S. dollars) from £9,060,000 in 2023. They were able to do this despite financial headwinds in today's economic climate and reduced expenses related to trade fairs, a substantial source of sales. These were reduced to improve profitability, these fairs being very costly to attend. Scholium described the change as attending “fewer but more productive fairs.”
Profitability was also up, in this case by 30%. Profits before tax were £300,000 ($400,000) compared to £231,000 in the previous year. Their profit margin increased from 38.1% to 39.4%.
While virtually all of the business is in Shapero Rare Books, there are two parts, Shapero Rare Books, which trades in books, and Shapero Modern, which trades modern and contemporary prints and limited editions by established artists. Books garner approximately 75% of the sales. This marks Scholium's third straight profitable year after beginning a turnaround program to end years of losses. They noted the second half of the year was better than the first half, and so far into their new year, the momentum is continuing.
Chief Executive Officer Bernard Shapero stated, “...the market for books and art remained encouraging and progressed, particularly in the second half of the year... The market turned noticeably better over the last four months, particularly in art.” He continued, “the active decision to seek out and execute wider opportunities will continue this year with some additional selective hires of new sector experts.” Scholium said that it is seeking to expand in new specialty areas, with plans to grow internally or through acquisitions. Borrowing has gone up, but that has been to fund inventory growth and with it, increasing sales. Shapero concluded that changes being made “will, I believe, lead to continuing progress in the current year.”
