Daily Journal Corporation Announces Financial Results for the Six Months ended March 31, 2023

LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- During the six months ended March 31, 2023, Daily Journal Corporation (NASDAQ:DJCO) had consolidated revenues of $28,455,000 as compared to $22,685,000 in the prior year period. This increase of $5,770,000 was primarily from increases in (i) Journal Technologies’ consulting fees of $4,325,000 mainly resulting from more project go-lives (signoffs by the clients), license and maintenance fees of $986,000 and other public service fees of $307,000 and (ii) the Traditional Business’ advertising revenues of $64,000, advertising service fees and other of $64,000 and circulation revenues of $24,000.

        The Traditional Business’ pretax income decreased by $949,000 to $1,643,000 from $2,592,000 in the prior fiscal year period, primarily because there was less reduction to the long-term supplemental compensation accrual of $700,000 as compared to $2,010,000 in the prior fiscal year period. Journal Technologies’ business segment pretax loss decreased by $1,429,000 to $734,000 from $2,163,000 in the prior fiscal year period, primarily because of increased revenues of $5,618,000 as mentioned above. These revenue increases were partially offset by increased operating expenses of $4,189,000 mostly due to (i) increased personnel costs because of larger salary adjustments due to recent inflation in the compensation market for talent, (ii) increased third-party hosting fees which were billed to clients and (iii) additional miscellaneous office software license purchases and increased business travel expenses.

        During the six months ended March 31, 2023, the Company sold certain of its marketable securities for approximately $2,826,000, realizing net gains on the sales of those marketable securities of $422,000 (as compared to the sales of $80,570,000 in marketable securities with $14,249,000 of realized net gains in the prior year period), and borrowed an additional $6,000,000 from the Company’s margin loan account to primarily purchase additional marketable securities with a total cost of approximately $10,001,000 (as compared to an additional marketable security purchase of $117,678,000 in the prior fiscal year with additional borrowings of $43,000,000). There were interest expense increases of $1,675,000 to $1,937,000 from $262,000 primarily because of the federal interest rate increases. In addition, there were net unrealized gains on marketable securities of $32,669,000 as compared to net unrealized losses of $44,409,000 in the prior fiscal year period. The Company’s investments generated approximately $5,132,000 in dividends income for the six months ended March 31, 2023, as compared to $2,988,000 in the prior fiscal year period. During the six months ended March 31, 2023, consolidated pretax income was $37,195,000, as compared to a pretax loss of $27,005,000 in the prior fiscal year period. The net income per common share is based on the weighted average number of shares outstanding during the comparable financial periods. The shares used in the calculation were 1,377,026 and 1,380,746 for the six months ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 respectively. There was consolidated net income of $27,260,000 ($18.63 per share) for the six months ended March 31, 2023, as compared to consolidated net loss of $20,935,000 (-$15.16 per share) in the prior fiscal year period.