Regulatory announcements

Revenue comfortably ahead and profit materially ahead of expectations

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (LSE: BMY), the leading independent publisher, today announces a year-end trading update for the 12 months ending 28 February 2023.

Revenue is now expected to be over £260 million and profit before taxation and highlighted items is expected to be some £30 million for the year ended 28 February 2023.* This follows strong trading at the end of the year.

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

“Bloomsbury’s unique position in combining consumer and academic publishing combined with our investment in high quality content and company acquisitions has enabled us to achieve excellent trading for the year. We have seen strong demand for our titles - in print, ebook and audio - and continued digital growth. Two of our strongest performances in the year have come from very disparate ends of our publishing strategy - fantasy novels on the one hand and academic digital resources on the other - showing how well our balanced consumer and academic portfolio is working in practice.

Throughout a year which has been characterised by rising inflation and cost of living pressure, it is notable that reading remains hugely popular throughout the world with books regarded by many readers as an affordable pastime.”

Consumer

Strong trading in the Consumer division was driven by both frontlist and core backlist titles. Samantha Shannon’s new novel, A Day of Fallen Night was published in February 2023 and became an instant bestseller worldwide. Other bestsellers included Johan Hari’s Stolen Focus and BAKE by Paul Hollywood. Strong backlist sales continued, in particular for Sarah J. Maas, as well as The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and Dishoom: From Bombay with Love by Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir.

On 11 March 2023, Peter Frankopan’s new title The Earth Transformed reached number two in the Sunday Times bestseller lists, and Samantha Shannon’s A Day of Fallen Night reached number one in the Sunday Times and number three in the New York Times bestseller lists.

We are particularly pleased to announce the signing this week of a further four book contract with Sarah J. Maas, on top of the three future books already under contract.

Non-Consumer

We achieved strong growth in Bloomsbury Digital Resources through leveraging our acquisition of ABC-CLIO and continued organic growth. ABC-CLIO brought to Bloomsbury a portfolio of digital academic resources, with a major presence in the US high school library market, and opportunities for accessing wider, international markets with their products. We are encouraged by the pipeline of further cross-selling and growth opportunities from ABC-CLIO. We have launched a new platform for our academic streaming content, Bloomsbury Video Library, with more than 2,000 films spanning a vast range of subjects.

We will provide further details about the year ending 28 February 2023 with our preliminary results announcement.

* The Board considers current consensus market expectations for the year ending 28 February 2023 to be revenue of £242.6 million and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £26.9 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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