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Publishes academic journals, textbooks and professional/research content, plus corporate training and assessment services.
Publishes academic journals, textbooks and professional/research content, plus corporate training and assessment services.
Research publishing carries the business: libraries pay for journal subscriptions on multi-year licences, and authors or their funders pay fees to publish articles open access, so revenue is recurring. Wiley also licenses content to AI developers. The Wiley family still controls the board through a separate class of shares.
Moat: narrow (brand, installed base, IP / patents). Established journal brands and researcher submission relationships are hard for new entrants to displace.
Headquarters: Hoboken, New Jersey, US · Founded: 1807 · Employees: 4,500
Size John Wiley & Sons (WLY) is a United States Communication Services company (Publishing: Books/Magazines) with a market value of $2.55B, the 1645th largest of 3,117 United States companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at $50.23 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares gained 21.4%, against +1.7% for the median peer and -1.1% for the United States market (cap-weighted) — 4th highest of 20 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue fell 0.3% over the last twelve months (peer median -3.0%); the operating margin is 17.6% (peer median 7.6%).
Valuation It trades at 10.5× forward earnings against a peer median of 14.7× (2nd cheapest of 19).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about 0% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is -3%, so the hurdle is +3 pp: the price needs faster growth than the company has been delivering — of companies that just grew 25–50% a year, 93.8% slowed down over the next four years.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 3.7 points above its cost of capital (7.5% WACC).
Backlog Backlog (remaining performance obligations) was $402M at 31 Jul 2026, up 6% on a year earlier — 0.2 years of trailing revenue. Backlog detail →
Short interest Short interest is 9.8% of the free float (15 Oct 2026).
Next results Next results expected around 9 Dec 2026 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.67B | $1.68B | $1.68B | $1.87B | $2.02B |
| Revenue growth | — | 0% | -10% | -7% | — |
| Gross profit | $1.19B | $1.19B | $1.19B | $1.24B | $1.24B |
| EBITDA | $438M | $444M | $397M | $405M | $423M |
| Net income | $198M | $222M | $84.2M | -$200M | $17.2M |
| Free cash flow | $240M | $209M | $141M | $130M | $196M |
| Capital expenditure | $82.5M | $83.8M | $82.8M | $104M | $107M |
| Total debt | $1.37B | $769M | $914M | $897M | $898M |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Wiley & Sons WLY | $2.55B | +21% | 0% | 18% | 10.5× | 0.3% |
| Relx REL.L | $70.4B | +23% | +2% | 32% | 21.3× | 1.8% |
| Pearson PSON.L | $10.4B | +18% | +3% | 15% | 18.4× | 0.9% |
| Springer Nature AG & Co. KGaA SPG.DE | $4.80B | +10% | +3% | 22% | 13.0× | -6.5% |
| Informa INF.L | $15.3B | +5% | +5% | 19% | 15.5× | 15.4% |
| Wolters Kluwer WKL.AS | $22.0B | +54% | 0% | 26% | 15.9× | -3.0% |
| McGraw Hill MH | $2.08B | -8% | 0% | 16% | 5.6× | -5.6% |
Peer set: Industry: the same industry and sector in any market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | WLY | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | +1.7% | +9.1% | 7th lowest of 20 |
| 6-month return | +21.4% | +1.7% | 4th highest of 20 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -12.6% | -12.0% | 10th lowest of 20 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | -0.3% | -3.0% | 6th highest of 20 |
| Operating margin | 17.6% | 7.6% | 2nd highest of 20 |
| Forward P/E | 10.5× | 14.7× | 2nd cheapest of 19 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | 0.3% | -6.5% | 9th most demanding of 18 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | -2.9% | +1.5% | 2nd lowest of 18 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | +3.2 pp | -8.4 pp | 7th most demanding of 18 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | +3.7 pp | +4.1 pp | 8th lowest of 20 |
| EV / EBITDA | 8.7× | 11.0× | 2nd cheapest of 6 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 2.9× | -2.5× | 2nd most indebted of 7 |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Wiley & Sons WLY | United States | $2.55B | +21% | 0% | 18% | 10.5× | 0.3% | -2.9% |
| Shandong Publishing & Media 601019.SS | China | $2.41B | +3% | -8% | 8% | 12.2× | -14.1% | +2.9% |
| Zhejiang Publishing & Media 601921.SS | China | $2.71B | +7% | -7% | 10% | 14.0× | -12.6% | +1.5% |
| China Science Publishing & Media 601858.SS | China | $2.31B | -23% | 0% | 10% | 31.4× | 25.2% | +3.6% |
| Central China Land Media 000719.SZ | China | $2.91B | +5% | -10% | 13% | 10.5× | -8.9% | -0.5% |
| Kadokawa 9468.T | Japan | $3.02B | -2% | +3% | 2% | 101.9× | 25.1% | +6.1% |
| Southern Publishing & Media 601900.SS | China | $2.09B | +27% | -3% | 16% | 11.6× | -10.2% | +4.7% |
| China South Publishing & Media 601098.SS | China | $3.11B | +2% | -1% | 11% | 13.6× | -20.2% | +3.8% |
| China Literature 0772.HK | Hong Kong | $3.18B | -9% | +12% | 2% | 34.3× | 40.8% | -3.6% |
| Jiangsu Phoenix Publishing & Media 601928.SS | China | $3.60B | 0% | -13% | 7% | 15.4× | -7.9% | +0.5% |
| Changjiang Publishing & Media 600757.SS | China | $1.67B | +6% | -3% | 11% | 9.9× | -9.5% | +1.2% |
| China Publishing & Media 601949.SS | China | $1.64B | -2% | -10% | 3% | 15.9× | 6.3% | -2.1% |
| Chinese Universe Publishing & Media 600373.SS | China | $1.57B | -6% | -5% | -4% | 26.0× | n/a | n/a |
| Springer Nature AG & Co. KGaA SPG.DE | Germany | $4.80B | +10% | +3% | 22% | 13.0× | -6.5% | +3.4% |
| Heilongjiang Publishing & Media 605577.SS | China | $1.03B | +37% | +2% | 7% | n/a | 3.2% | -0.5% |
| Storytel STORY-B.ST | Sweden | $1.01B | +37% | +9% | 12% | 20.2× | 12.0% | +12.5% |
| Citic Press 300788.SZ | China | $958M | -6% | -2% | 1% | 42.0× | 26.8% | -2.1% |
| Time Publishing & Media 600551.SS | China | $761M | -5% | -25% | 4% | 11.7× | -21.0% | +0.7% |
| Bloomsbury Publishing BMY.L | United Kingdom | $722M | +9% | -7% | 9% | 14.1× | 0.7% | +12.0% |
| Scholastic SCHL | United States | $685M | -7% | -3% | 1% | 20.8× | n/a | n/a |
John Wiley & Sons reported $402M of remaining performance obligations at 31 Jul 2026, up 6% from a year earlier and down 14% from the previous quarter. That is 0.2 years of trailing revenue already under contract. Book-to-bill last quarter: 0.83.