Interim Management Statement

RNS Number : 4411U

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

15 October 2010

 



Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Interim Management Statement

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc is issuing its Interim Management Statement in respect of the period from 1^st July 2010 to date.

UK

Bloomsbury's trading in the UK remains resilient. The majority of our major titles for the period up to Christmas have now been released. The film version of the Bloomsbury published title of Eat, Pray, Love, which features Julia Roberts, has now gone on general release and following extensive publicity for the film and an author tour in the UK by Elizabeth Gilbert the book has risen to number 1 on The Sunday Times Paperback Non Fiction list. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize this week and has reached number 2 on Amazon.co.uk and number 3 on Amazon.com in America and is reprinting in both countries.  A new River Cottage series on Channel 4 is already having a positive impact on the sales of River Cottage Everyday which we originally published in 2009. MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 was published in September and is already close to achieving its internal sales target for the remainder of the year. The launch of the first installment of the seventh Harry Potter film in November is likely to boost sales of the books.

Bloomsbury Professional has an exceptionally strong publishing programme for the autumn.  As expected, the change of government has led to a new range of tax measures which will create many new publishing opportunities.  With tax advisers getting up to speed with a second Finance Act in 2010, this year's Core Tax Annuals have been particularly well received, and have achieved their highest level of sales ever.

Key titles for the autumn include The Law and Practice Relating to Charities 4^th ed, by Hubert Picarda QC which is the first major book to cover the sweeping new reforms in charities law, and Irish Land Law 4^th ed by Professor John Wylie, the definitive analysis of Ireland's Land and Conveyancing Act 2009.  Both have been well received and are selling strongly, proving that in dynamic areas of law, good books will continue to perform well even in tough markets.

At Bloomsbury Academic, the public beta version of www.bloomsburyacademic.com is now launched with the hard launch in early November. Berg Fashion Library was launched in July. Whilst it is early days, the number of trials and early institutional subscribers are both well ahead of our internal targets at this stage.

The launch of Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals is on schedule for December 12^th with some important scientific journals now signed up.

US

We have the US rights to The Finkler Question and we published it in America on the day of the Man Booker Prize victory this week. This news was covered on the front page of the New York Times. Backlist titles continue to sell well and we have a good list of new titles for the Christmas period including George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps, by Barnet Schecter, and two books from Carrie Jones, Entice, and Captivate We experienced a high level of returns from major customers in August and September but this has settled down now.

Germany

The second half is looking more buoyant than the first with books sales improving. Eat, Pray, Love reaching number 1 on Der Spiegel bestseller list.

Outlook and Financial Position

Overall, business is performing well for the Group. The outcome for the year is still dependent on the level of consumer and business to business demand between now and the end of the financial year. Major database projects are under consideration which forms part of new business in 2010.

The Group's cash position as at 30 September 2010 was £30.6m.

As previously announced, the Company is changing its financial year-end to February so the next announcement of results will be a second interim results statement in respect of the six months ending 31 December 2010 which is expected to be announced in February 2011.

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For further information, please contact:

Nigel Newton, Chief Executive, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc         020 7494 6015

Daniel de Belder / Rosanne Perry, Pelham Bell Pottinger             020 7861 3232

 

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