Regulatory announcements

Strong trading in-line with recently upgraded expectations

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (LSE: BMY), the leading independent publisher, today announces its trading update for the four months ended 30 June 2024 ahead of the Company’s Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) at 12.00pm today.

Bloomsbury’s trading has been in line with recently upgraded expectations, including the acquisition of Rowman and Littlefield’s academic publishing business,* following a strong performance in the first four months of its financial year.

Consumer bestsellers in the period include:

• Sarah J. Maas’ titles across all three of her bestselling series: Crescent City, Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses;
• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series;
• Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, which is now also a Netflix series;
• Stuart Turton’s The Last Murder at the End of the World, a No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller;
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s How to Eat 30 Plants A Week, a No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller;
• Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain, accompanying the TV series; and
• Johann Hari’s Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs.

Exciting new releases for the summer include Sally Smith’s A Case of Mice and Murder, Josephine Quinn’s How the World Made the West, a Financial Times pick for Best History Book of 2024, and Mayowa and the Sea of Words by Chibundu Onuzo.

The Non-Consumer division included continued growth in Bloomsbury Digital Resources (BDR). On 29 May 2024, Bloomsbury announced the transformational acquisition of Rowman and Littlefield’s academic publishing business, making Bloomsbury a leading US academic publisher with c.97,000 titles. The enlarged Academic business will focus on wider international sales, subject area expansion and continued innovation in digital scholarship and learning. This strategically important acquisition and our organic growth will accelerate BDR from 2023/2024’s revenue of £27m to our increased BDR revenue target for 2027/28 of £41m, as Bloomsbury applies its proven ability to create premium digital content for the first time to Rowman & Littlefield’s market leading titles, expanding BDR products.

The Board is confident in the medium and long-term strategy for Consumer and investing in Academic & Professional Publishing, with the benefits of digital content. We continue to execute our strategy of diversification across formats, territories and markets, reflecting our portfolio of portfolios strategy. Our authors, customers, consistent performance and the scale and resilience of our business continue to underpin the confidence we have in the future.

We will provide further details about the year ending 28 February 2025 with our Interim Results announcement.

*The Board considers current consensus market expectation for the year ending 28 February 2025 to be revenue of £319.3m and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £37.6m.

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Disclaimer

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.

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