John Wiley: Tapping Online Potential

Our Dallas presenter likes John Wiley and Sons' prospects in electronic publishing (NYSE: JW-A, $41.98). The company moved all of its legacy content in the Scientific, Technical, Medical and Scholarly segment to its online platform Wiley InterScience, creating a new revenue stream. In the Higher Education business, WileyPLUS, JW's electronic learning platform has been a success, with the one million users mark passed last September. The company is testing new distribution models. John Wiley's business is truly global, with 50% of the revenue generated overseas. The acquisition of Blackwell Publishing two years ago almost tripled the company's offering of scholarly journals, the #1 category in the company's STMS segment, which accounts for 60% of the total sales. John Wiley has added a number of important journal licenses in the recent quarters, while keeping contract losses to a minimum.