Mass media and entertainment giant Paramount reported its second-quarter earnings on Monday and showed signs of improvement after a rough first three months of 2023. The investors took notice, sending the company’s shares up by almost 7% at one point in after-hours trading on Monday.
Paramount reported $7.62 billion in revenue for the second quarter, beating Wall Street analysts’ estimates of $7.43 billion. It also had $0.10 in adjusted earnings per share versus the expected $0.00.
Aside from solid Q2 numbers, the investors were encouraged by the sale of publisher Simon & Schuster. After a deal to sell Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House fell apart back in 2022, Paramount circled back and struck an agreement with KKR. The sale is worth $1.62 billion in cash.
However, it wasn’t all good for Paramount. The company’s linear ad revenue plunged 10% while having a $250 million operating loss compared to $819 million in profit in the same period of last year. It also added just 700,000 subscribers to its streaming service Paramount+ compared to the 1.14 million expected by the analysts and 3.7 million added in the second quarter of 2022.
The shares of Paramount closed at $16.09 per share on Monday before jumping to $17.33 early in after-hours trading. They later settled at around $16.47 per share.