Trading Update

RNS Number : 9440U

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

18 July 2018

 

18 July 2018

BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING Plc

("Bloomsbury")

Trading Update

Bloomsbury today announces its trading results for the four months ended 30 June 2018. Total revenues are up 3.7% year on year (up 7.1% at constant currencies*). Excluding the revenues of IB Tauris, which was acquired on 30 April 2018, revenues are up by 2.1% (up 5.5% at constant currencies*).

Both the Consumer and Non-Consumer divisions grew revenues in the period, with a particularly strong result in the Adult division. Top selling titles in the period included A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows and Circe by Madeline Miller.

The Board believes the Group's performance for the 2018/19 year will be in line with its expectations. The first quarter traditionally generates the smallest profit of the financial year.

Last week The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje won the Golden Man Booker Prize. This special one-off award for Man Booker Prize's 50th anniversary celebrations was for the best work of fiction from the last five decades of the prize. Bloomsbury authors made up 40% of the Golden Man Booker Prize shortlist with Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders also included on the five book shortlist, demonstrating the Group's exceptional list of authors and exceptional editors who choose them.

Today Bloomsbury is also announcing that the publication of Tom Kerridge's Fresh Start in December 2018, will be accompanied by a 6-part primetime BBC Two television series of the same name. Tom Kerridge's Lose Weight for Good, which was also accompanied by a TV series, was a significant title for Bloomsbury last year.

Product output within Bloomsbury Digital Resources continues in line with plan. Screen Studies and Bloomsbury Early Years have launched since the year end.  Later this year we will be launching the Bloomsbury Architecture Library, which includes the 21^st edition of Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture, produced in association with the Royal Institute of British Architects and University College London. Other products being launched this year include Bloomsbury Applied Visual Arts and Bloomsbury Fashion Business Cases.

Bloomsbury is delighted to announce today that we are partnering with YOOX Net-a-Porter to make rare fashion show footage available to the educational market exclusively through Bloomsbury for the first time. The archive, offering an unrivalled window onto fashion history between 1979 and 2003, will make a significant contribution to our multi-award winning Bloomsbury Fashion Central platform.

As previously announced, Penny Scott-Bayfield joined Bloomsbury as Group Finance Director on 16 July. Wendy Pallot leaves Bloomsbury following the AGM today. We thank Wendy for her great contribution to Bloomsbury over the last seven years.

The results for the six months ending 31 August 2018 will be announced on 23 October 2018.

Note: * Changes in exchange rates year on year result in a lack of comparability between periods. Revenue growth using constant currencies enable a better understanding of the underlying performance and is calculated by applying prior year exchange rates to current year revenues.

For further information, please contact:

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc	[phone]
Nigel Newton, Chief Executive Penny Scott-Bayfield, Group Finance Director
FTI Consulting	[phone]
Charles Palmer / Dwight Burden / Emma Hall / Leah Dudley	[e-mail]

Notes to Editors

About Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc is a medium-sized independent publisher of general and academic books quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

 

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