Press releases & announcements

19th September 2006

Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2006

• Six months revenue up 6.5% to £37.66m (2005, £35.37m)

• Pre-tax profit increased 3.4% to £4.22m (2005, £4.08m)

• Basic earnings per share increased 2.3% to 4.08p (2005, 3.99p)

• Interim dividend up 10% to 0.66p (2005, 0.60p)

• Investment in future titles excluding reference databases increased 39.4% to £31.24m (31 December 2005, £22.41m), which underpins strong publishing lists for second half and into 2007

• US and German operations performing well

• Expansion into new areas of publishing within Children's and Adult divisions

• Trading in line with the Board's expectations. Board remains confident of a satisfactory outcome for the year.

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

"Bloomsbury has made good progress in the first six months of 2006. Our international businesses are clearly established and performing well. The benefits of our prior investment in authors and new business initiatives are coming through as planned."

"The Group's publishing programme for the second half of the year is one of the strongest to date and includes books from some of our bestselling authors and potential bestsellers from new authors. The second half has started well with trading in line with our expectations, and the Board remains confident of a satisfactory outcome to the year."

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