Acquisition

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
16 September 2002


                           BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC

(London 16th September, 2002) Bloomsbury Publishing Plc announces it has
acquired the specialist dictionary and language publisher, Peter Collin
Publishing Ltd for a total consideration of £860,000.

Peter Collin Publishing is well-known in academic and international markets for
its range of high-quality specialist English and bilingual dictionaries. It
publishes over 130 subject dictionaries and language titles that are used by
students, translators and professionals around the world. The company also
publishes the UK's best-selling crossword reference title, Bradford's Crossword
Dictionary.

Bloomsbury's Chief Executive, Nigel Newton commented:

'This acquisition extends the range of our reference content and demonstrates
Bloomsbury's commitment to growing its sources of high-quality repeat revenues.
The strengths of the Peter Collin list in specialist and bilingual dictionaries
complement our own dictionary ranges and will substantially enhance our
reference publishing programme by providing content that can be exploited in
electronic as well as print form. The acquisition will help us achieve our aim
of increasing our presence in the reference markets both in the UK and in the
US.'

In recent months Bloomsbury, through subsidiary A&C Black, has also acquired
Whitakers Almanack and the Poyser Natural History lists (70 ornithological
titles).

Bloomsbury's Reference and Electronic Media Division is a leading provider of
content for electronic and print applications, working with many leading
companies around the world including Microsoft, St Martin's Press, The Economist
and Macmillan.

Since 1996 Bloomsbury Reference has created over 25 million words of dictionary
and reference content for worldwide publication in print and electronic form.
The 1999 global print and electronic publication of the Encarta World English
Dictionary was followed in 2000 by the Encarta Book of Quotations, in 2001 by
the Encarta Concise English Dictionary / Encarta College Dictionary (US) and the
Encarta Thesaurus, and in 2002 by the Encarta Pocket Dictionary and Encarta
Pocket Thesaurus.
2002 has seen worldwide publication of the Macmillan English Dictionary for
learners of English created by Bloomsbury, which was published in March and has
also been reprinted.
Bloomsbury's lead reference title for 2002 is BUSINESS - the Ultimate
ResourceTM, the one-stop reference source for everyone at work. Partners include
Perseus Books (US and Canada), economist.com and London Business School.



Contacts:

Simon Forrest
Impact Consultancy (m) 07885 317746



                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange      ACQUOUBRUKRKAAR