Regulatory announcements

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc today announces unaudited results for the year ended 28 February 2014.

Financial highlights

The highlights for the year ended 28 February 2014 include:

• Revenue up 11% to £109.5 million (2012/13: £98.5 million)
• Profit before tax and highlighted items* up 4% to £13.0 million (2012/13: £12.5 million)
• Profit before tax £9.5 million (2012/13: £9.8 million)
• Total dividend increased by 5.8% to 5.82 pence per share (2012/13: 5.50 pence per share)
• Net cash balance of £10.0 million (2012/13: £14.6 million) following acquisition investment including Hart Publishing in September 2013

Operating highlights

• Adult Division - a spectacular year
  • Revenue was £49.9 million (2012/13: £44.3 million), with operating profit before highlighted items £5.4 million (2012/13: £3.7 million)
  • Robust growth in e-book sales with potential for further expansion in high-growth economies
  • Major best sellers including Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed and Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season
  • Consistently strong performance from portfolio of high quality cookery books, including Tom Kerridge's Proper Pub Food and significant sales from established authors including Raymond Blanc, Heston Blumenthal, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and MasterChef
• Academic & Professional business delivers robust sales performance
  • Revenue was up 11% to £32.1 million (2012/13: £29.0 million)
  • Revenues from e-books and other digital products now account for 10% of divisional revenue (2012/13: 8%)
  • Launched award-winning new digital services including Drama Online, Actors and Performers and in May 2014 Bloomsbury Collections
  • A new platform, Bloomsbury Fashion Central, to be launched in 2015
  • Voted Academic, Professional and Educational Publisher of the Year in May 2013 and 2014 at the annual industry trade awards
• Strategic investment pays off in Children's & Educational
  • Revenue of £23.6 million (2012/13: £21.3 million)
  • Majority of UK sales growth came from illustrated books in line with our strategy
  • Highlights included Fortunately, the Milk... by Neil Gaiman being shortlisted for the Specsavers Children's Book of the Year and the bestseller Shh! Don't Wake the Royal Baby! by Martha Mumford and Ada Gray
• Digital sales sees significant growth
  • Significant growth in digital sales increasing 21% to £12.2 million, contributing 12.1% of title sales (2012/13: 11.5%)
  • Strong performance in UK and other markets with potential for further growth as digital reading devices become more widespread in the high-growth economies of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America
• Potential bestsellers for 2014/15
  • Paperbacks including Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed, Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things and The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
  • New titles from Tom Kerridge, Paul Hollywood and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
  • The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon
  • We are Pirates by Daniel Handler (published under pen-name Lemony Snicket)
  • Close Call by Stella Rimington
  • Miss Carter's War by Sheila Hancock
  • Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
  • Social Suppers by Jason Atherton

Commenting on the results, Nigel Newton, Chief Executive, said:

“This has been a very strong year for Bloomsbury.

Our Adult division had a spectacular year driven by an excellent list of new books including Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed, Samantha Shannon's debut novel The Bone Season, and the continued strength of our cookery list which includes the phenomenal success of Tom Kerridge's Proper Pub Food.

We have continued to grasp the opportunities offered by the digital revolution to build a growing profitable, sustainable and balanced twenty-first century publishing business. Underpinning this is our success in developing into a wholly integrated trade and academic publisher in the major markets around the world. During the year we made good progress towards our longer-term strategic targets.

We enter 2014/15 with a strong publishing programme including new titles from Tom Kerridge and Paul Hollywood as well as a year-long Harry Potter marketing campaign to promote the newly illustrated series. In May we launched Bloomsbury Collections, an academic e-book platform that will have 3,500 titles by the end of the year.”

* Highlighted items mainly comprise amortisation of intangible assets, acquisition related legal and other professional fees and restructuring costs.

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