AGM Statement

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
24 June 2004



24 June 2004



                           Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
                                 AGM Statement


At today's AGM of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Nigel Newton, Chairman will make
the following statement:

'Bloomsbury has made good progress since the beginning of the year, in line with
the outlook statement in the company's preliminary announcement in March. The
group continues both to generate strong cashflow and invest in its future
publishing programme.


'The UK book market has been reasonably buoyant in the first half of 2004.
Joanna Trollope's Brother and Sister has become a bestseller and A Gathering
Light, by Jennifer Donnelly, which was published in paperback in May 2004, is
selling strongly.


'In May this year we sold the Blue Guide travel list to a specialist travel
guide company. The travel guide market is becoming highly competitive and we
felt it an opportune moment to dispose of the list. The consideration received
for the sale covered the cost of stock, work in progress and a small number of
staff redundancies. The list had sales of £0.345m and was loss making in 2003.


'The unprecedented success of the film of Harry Potter and The Prisoner of
Azkaban at the box office following its release on 31 May underscores the
continuing huge popularity of the series in the build up to the release by
Bloomsbury of the paperback of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on 10
July.


'The publishing programme in the second half of the year is strong. Jonathan
Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke is generating significant interest in
the book trade in the UK as well as the US and Germany in anticipation of its
September release. Schott's Sporting Gaming and Idling Miscellany, the third in
the highly successful Schott's Miscellany Series will be published in the
autumn. The Two of Us by Sheila Hancock about her late husband John Thaw is also
generating significant interest.


'John Dare will be stepping down from the Board today. John has been a
non-executive director of Bloomsbury for over ten years and has made a huge
contribution to the business for which the board would like to thank him.'



                                      ENDS



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