One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$96.60 our estimate vs market $47.03
Wall Street consensus: $68.00 (-29.6% lower than our fair-value estimate)
51% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
WLY · NYQ · Communication Services · Publishing
Current price
$47.03
52-week range
$28.38 - $57.45
Market cap
$2.38B
Balance sheet
Stretched
6.75x Adequate
Net debt $1.27B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
1 Risk
3 rewards · 1 risks
- Reward Returns 25.9% on equity, ahead of 80% of its peers.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
- Reward Trades at 12.7x P/E vs peer median 19.0x (33.3% cheaper).
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 10.2% to 7.3% over 3 years.
What this company does
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
John Wiley & Sons is a long-standing publishing company that creates academic journals and educational books for scientists, students, and professionals. The company primarily makes money by selling subscriptions to its research content to institutions like universities, which provides a steady stream of recurring revenue (income that comes in at regular intervals with a high degree of certainty). This matters because their specialized content is often considered essential for scientific discovery and professional education, creating a stable customer base.
How the company got here
Founded by Charles Wiley in 1807 as a small printing shop in Manhattan, the company initially published the works of American literary giants. In the late 19th century, the founder's sons shifted the focus to scientific and technical topics, which became the company's foundation for future growth. Over the next century, Wiley expanded globally and embraced digital publishing, acquiring other publishers like Blackwell Publishing to strengthen its position in academic and professional content. Today, it is a major global company that provides educational materials and scholarly research content in both print and digital formats.
What it actually does
John Wiley & Sons is a publishing company that creates and shares information for students, researchers, and professionals. Think of the textbooks you might find on a college campus, the scientific journals a doctor might read to stay up-to-date, or the how-to books in the popular "For Dummies" series. The company produces this content in various forms, including physical books, online journals, and digital courses. They sell this information to libraries, universities, companies, and individuals around the world.
Research
This is the larger of Wiley's two main business areas and focuses on publishing scholarly and professional information. Its main customers are research libraries, professional societies, and individual researchers who pay for access to thousands of scientific, technical, and medical journals. This segment generates revenue (the total amount of money a company brings in from sales) through subscriptions to its Wiley Online Library and by charging fees to authors who want to publish their research in open access formats, making it freely available to everyone. This part of the business has been a major focus for growth.
Learning
This part of the company provides educational materials for students and professionals. It creates and sells college textbooks, digital course materials, and books for professional development in areas like business, technology, and healthcare. Customers include college bookstores, online retailers, and companies that buy training materials for their employees. While familiar to many consumers, this segment has faced challenges due to pressures on college enrollment and changes in how students buy and use textbooks.
What management is betting on now
The company's leadership is focused on strengthening its Research segment, seeing it as the more profitable and stable part of the business. A key part of this strategy is expanding its digital content and services, including licensing (selling permission to use) its vast library of content to artificial intelligence companies. Management is also working on making the company more efficient by reducing costs to improve profitability (the ability to make a profit). Another priority is expanding its services for corporate clients, providing training and knowledge resources directly to businesses.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2025 Q2
$-19.81M
FY2025 Q3
$132.93M
FY2025 Q4
$131.22M
FY2026 Q1
$-97.01M
FY2026 Q2
$-4.62M
FY2026 Q3
$166.96M
FY2026 Q4
$144.03M
FY2027 Q1
$-66.47M
Revenue
$386.36M
Net income
$-11.73M
Diluted EPS
-0.23
Operating cash flow
$-55.27M
Free cash flow
$-66.47M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$447.94M
Net income
$135.35M
Diluted EPS
2.54
Operating cash flow
$157.21M
Free cash flow
$144.03M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$410.04M
Net income
$29.68M
Diluted EPS
0.56
Operating cash flow
$179.82M
Free cash flow
$166.96M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$421.75M
Net income
$44.89M
Diluted EPS
0.84
Operating cash flow
$8.50M
Free cash flow
$-4.62M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$396.80M
Net income
$11.70M
Diluted EPS
0.22
Operating cash flow
$-85.00M
Free cash flow
$-97.01M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$442.58M
Net income
$68.09M
Diluted EPS
1.25
Operating cash flow
$150.34M
Free cash flow
$131.22M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$404.63M
Net income
$-22.95M
Diluted EPS
-0.43
Operating cash flow
$146.24M
Free cash flow
$132.93M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$426.60M
Net income
$40.46M
Diluted EPS
0.74
Operating cash flow
$-5.28M
Free cash flow
$-19.81M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $96.60 vs current price $47.03
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $68.00 (-29.6% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $96.60 a share — about 105.4% above today's price of $47.03, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $1.3B. Interest coverage 6.8x.
Net debt
$1.27B
Interest coverage
6.75x
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 6.8 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
WLY
BASELINE
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Total debt $1.38B Interest coverage 6.75x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $2.65B Interest coverage 1.52x -77% vs WLY Carries about 4.4x less debt cushion than WLY.
Total debt $2.38B Interest coverage 7.95x +18% vs WLY Carries about 1.2x more debt cushion than WLY.
Total debt $419.50M Interest coverage 1.85x -73% vs WLY Carries about 3.6x less debt cushion than WLY.
Total debt $1.46B Interest coverage 2.08x -69% vs WLY Carries about 3.2x less debt cushion than WLY.
What you should know
The case for and against WLY
3 Rewards
1 Risk
Rewards
-
Returns 25.9% on equity, ahead of 80% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
-
Trades at 12.7x P/E vs peer median 19.0x (33.3% cheaper).
Risks
-
Operating margin compressed from 10.2% to 7.3% over 3 years.
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
12.68x
Forward P/E
8.87x
P/B
2.82x
P/S
1.43x
EV/EBITDA
10.45x
PEG ratio
13.05x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
74.6%
Operating margin
7.3%
Net margin
11.9%
ROE
25.9%
ROA
6.2%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.73x
Current ratio
0.64x
Quick ratio
0.46x
Total debt
$1.38B
Total cash
$106.65M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$1.67B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-5.3%
EPS TTM
3.71
EPS 5Y CAGR
137.6%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$290.25M
Free CF TTM
$209.35M
FCF margin
12.6%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
3.0%
Payout ratio
38.3%
Last ex-div date
2026-07-07