Regulatory announcements

Trading ahead of expectations

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (LSE: BMY), the leading independent publisher, today gives a pre-year end trading update for the 12 months ending 28 February 2022.

Bloomsbury is pleased to announce that revenue is expected to be comfortably ahead and profit materially ahead of market expectations* for the year ending 28 February 2022.

Trading continued to be strong in the Consumer division, for both Adult and Children’s publishing.

A major milestone has been hit by Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”). We are delighted to announce that on 18 January 2022, we achieved the goal announced in May 2016 that we would create the BDR division which would generate £15 million of sales and £5 million of profit by the year ending 28 February 2022. Six years later we have done exactly that. Achieving this key long-term strategic goal, building high margin, quality revenues, demonstrates the strength and successful execution of our digital strategy.

BDR will benefit from the addition of further digital resources from the acquisition of ABC-CLIO LLC (“ABC-CLIO”). As previously announced, Bloomsbury completed the purchase of ABC-CLIO on 16 December 2021, for £17.3 million in cash. ABC-CLIO is an established academic publisher of reference, nonfiction, online curriculum and professional development materials in both print and digital formats for schools, academic libraries and public libraries, primarily in the USA. This acquisition is an excellent strategic fit with BDR and significantly accelerates the growth of Bloomsbury’s academic publishing in North America.

We will provide an update with our preliminary results in May 2022.

* The Board considers that the consensus market expectation for the year ending 28 February 2022 is currently revenue of £197.1 million and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £20.1 million.

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The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Group to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR"). Upon the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory Information Service ("RIS"), this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

The information in this announcement has not been audited or otherwise independently verified and no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of the information or opinions contained herein. None of the Company or any of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss whatsoever arising from any use of this announcement, or its contents, or otherwise arising in connection with this announcement.

This announcement does not constitute or form part of any offer or invitation to sell, or any solicitation of any offer to purchase any shares in the Company, nor shall it or any part of it or the fact of its distribution form the basis of, or be relied on in connection with, any contract or commitment or investment decisions relating thereto, nor does it constitute a recommendation regarding the shares of the Company.

Certain statements, statistics and projections in this announcement are or may be forward looking. By their nature, forward‑looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties or assumptions that may or may not occur and actual results or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, no assurance can be given that any particular expectation will be met and reliance should not be placed on any forward-looking statement. Accordingly, forward-looking statements contained in this announcement regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are based on the knowledge and information available only at the date of this announcement’s preparation.

The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or keep current the information contained in this announcement, including any forward‑looking statements, or to correct any inaccuracies which may become apparent and any opinions expressed in it are subject to change without notice.

References in this announcement to other reports or materials, such as a website address, have been provided to direct the reader to other sources of information on Bloomsbury Publishing Plc which may be of interest. Neither the content of Bloomsbury’s website nor any website accessible by hyperlinks from Bloomsbury’s website nor any additional materials contained or accessible thereon, are incorporated in, or form part of, this announcement.

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