John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Q3 FY2026 earnings call

1. Confident in position in AI economy with proprietary content advantage, peer review research, and partnership ecosystem. 2. Third quarter in line with expectations, revenue impacted by unfavorable comparables in research and soft market conditions in learning. 3. Accelerating in major areas: research publishing outpaces market, AI and data services have new leadership, partnerships, and revenue growth. 4. Executing on fiscal 26 commitments: leading in research with revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth, migrating journals to research exchange platform, expanding journal portfolio; delivering new growth in AI and adjacent markets with record AI revenue year to date; driving operational excellence with cost structure streamlining and tech transformation progress. 5. Key strategic priorities and value drivers: accelerating research core growth, delivering AI and data analytics growth, driving multi-year margin expansion, and disciplined portfolio management and capital allocation. 6. AI and data strategy: Leveraging proprietary content for AI, gateway platform solving researcher problem with peer-reviewed content, enriched data and AI solutions as foundation for domain-specific intelligence. 7. Appointed Chief AI and Data Services Officer, with progress in AI revenue, corporate customers, and publishing partners. 8. Examples of AI use cases like clinical outcome assessments and partnerships with IQVIA and OpenEvidence.

Research: Up 1% with 40 basis point improvement in EBITDA margin. Research publishing up over 4% absent AI revenues, driven by record submissions, solid recurring revenue models growth, and over double-digit author-funded open access growth. Research solutions declined 3% due to lower corporate spending and lower database revenue offsetting AI revenue. Year to date, research revenue and adjusted EBITDA up 4% and 6% respectively, with EBITDA margin improving 50 basis points. Learning: Revenue down 2% in the quarter, with 5% decline in professional offsetting 1% growth in academic. Year to date, learning revenue down 7% with adjusted EBITDA down 8%, segment EBITDA margin declined 50 basis points to 34.8%.

1. Raising adjusted EBITDA margin and adjusted EPS guidance to the high end of the range for fiscal 26. 2. Revenue growth expected to be in the low single digits, with research strong and learning challenged by macro and channel conditions. 3. Adjected EBITDA margin expected to finish at the high end of 25.5% to 26.5% range, up from 24% last year. 4. Adjected EPS expected to be at the high end of 390 to 435 range, up from 364 last year. 5. Reaffirm free cash flow of approximately 200 million. 6. Expect research growth and strong momentum to continue in fiscal 27, learning to improve to steady state, AI momentum to further accelerate, benefits of streamlined business development and product innovation under Armahan, and anticipation of copyright court decisions materializing.

Q: About AI related revenue momentum and direction, A: Matt mentioned seeing market evolve with AI opportunity in different growth curves, moving from initial non-recurring to recurring revenue models, with Craig adding about first growth curve being non-recurring but important for partnerships and learning, and second growth curve being recurring revenue models with progress made and expectation of tripling next year.

Q: About partnership with Vertusa and margin direction, A: Matt said partnership with Vertusa is roughly $150 million over five years, expected to generate productivity and agility, contributing to margin expansion objectives and propelling into AI-first technology infrastructure, with tech transformation being a significant driver of margin expansion and expected to continue.

Q: About fast-growing regions in research publishing and growth trend, A: Jay said growth across broad regions, strong momentum from major global research markets like China, India, North America, Europe, Japan, and Middle East, with submission and publication volumes growing healthily and confidence in business trajectory.

Q: About learning side and professional vs academic, A: Matt said learning has macro and channel headwinds, academic rose 1% driven by higher rights and licensing revenue and digital book sales, professional impacted by corporate and consumer spending headwinds but now beginning to stabilize, and there are no sacred cows in capital allocation.

Q: About unlocking shareholder value, A: Craig said thinking about organic growth investments with Armahan, portfolio and capital allocation including divestment of small business, and continuing to return capital to shareholders with healthy payout ratio and share buybacks while investing in the business