Press releases & announcements

4th April 2006

Preliminary Results for the Year Ended 31 December 2005

Highlights

• Turnover increased 29.2% to £109.11m (2004, £84.45m).

• Pre-tax profit before exceptional gain improved 23.6% to £20.13m (2004, £16.28m).

• Basic earnings per share before exceptional gain rose 18.6% to 20.30p (2004, 17.12p).

• Final dividend increased 21.1% to 3.0p (2004, 2.478p). Total dividend for the year increased by 20.0% to 3.60p (2004, 3.00p).

• Investment in future titles at the year endup 7.5% at £22.41m (2004, £20.85m).

• Significant investment in new business initiatives to drive future organic growth. New commissioning editors appointed. Up to £15m allocated for advances for new publishing area in music, TV, film and sport.

• International presence now clearly established and operations in US and Germany performing well.

• Good start to current year, in line with the Board’s expectations with strong pipeline of new titles.
  

Commenting on the results and prospects for Bloomsbury, Nigel Newton, Chairman, said:

“We achieved much in 2005, building our book list, expanding the number of our authors and improving the performance of our international operations. We have made particularly good progress in positioning the Group for growth in the future.

2006 has got off to a good start, in line with the Board’s expectations and with a number of bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. Our position as an international publisher is now firmly established and we expect to see further benefits from this and the new areas of publishing that we are entering in the current year and beyond.”

The full results are available to view and download in PDF format.

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