Latest results

Unaudited Interim Results for the six months ended 31 August 2023

Record first half earnings
Fourth consecutive double-digit growth in revenue and profit in the first half
Interim dividend increased

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (LSE: BMY), the leading independent publisher, today announces unaudited results for the six months ended 31 August 2023.

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

“Bloomsbury achieved our fourth consecutive double-digit growth in revenue and profit in the first half. These are also our highest ever first half results, with year-on-year revenue growth of 11% to £136.7 million and profit growth of 11% to £17.7 million. These results demonstrate the strength of our strategy of publishing for both the consumer and academic markets.

Fantasy is a huge and increasingly popular genre which has driven forward our consumer division. Sales of Sarah J. Maas and Samantha Shannon grew 79% and 169% respectively in the period and demand for Harry Potter, 26 years after publication, remains strong.

The Consumer division revenue grew by 17%, achieving a 26% increase in profit before tax and highlighted items¹ to £11.2 million. Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”) consolidated last year’s exceptional growth and increased subscription revenue to 47%. The Non-Consumer division’s resilient performance with 2% revenue growth and £5.9 million of profit before tax and highlighted items¹ continued to demonstrate the strength of our long term academic strategy.

Since the period end, Bloomsbury author Jon Fosse won the most important prize in the literary world, The Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the eighth Nobel Prize winner on Bloomsbury’s Methuen Drama list.

Bloomsbury’s successful strategy of diversifying across formats, markets and territories has created a stronger and more balanced business and a smoother earnings profile across the year. Recognising this, and in view of a better balance between sales in the first and second halves of the year than in the past when we were more heavily weighted to the second half and the Christmas market, we are increasing the proportion of the full year dividend paid at the interim. In line with this rebalancing and our dividend policy, the Board has increased the interim dividend to 3.70 pence per share, compared to 1.41 pence per share for the six months ended 31 August 2022. We maintain our overall dividend guidance for the full year.

The strong first half performance means that we are confident of achieving the Board’s expectations for the year ending 29 February 2024. Our strong financial position, with net cash of £39.1 million, gives us significant opportunities for further acquisitions and investment in organic growth.

Note

Chief Executive's statement

Overview

Bloomsbury delivered a strong first half performance, with revenue growth of 11% to £136.7 million (2022: £122.9 million), and an 11% increase in profit before taxation and highlighted items to £17.7 million (2022: £15.9 million). Profit before taxation grew by 8% to £14.0 million (2022: £12.9 million).

The strength of demand for Bloomsbury titles reflects our long-term growth strategy and the breadth of our diversified portfolio.

Our strategy of diversification, across channels and markets, continues successfully. Our international revenues increased to 76% of total revenue - our highest ever. Our digital strategy ensures increasing publishing sales through digital channels, and we continue to expand our consumer and academic markets.

We consolidated last year’s exceptional 69% growth in Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”) with £13.3 million revenue, and increased our BDR subscription revenue to 47% of the total (2022: 45%). The continued growth of subscription revenue underlines the strength of our long term digital strategy of building high margin, repeatable revenues. Our strategy enables us to continue to deliver growth from the ongoing and accelerating shift to digital learning, with the breadth and depth of our excellent digital products and ebooks. We are pleased to have maintained renewal rates above 90% and remain confident in our BDR target to achieve 40% organic revenue growth over the five years to 2027/28, to reach approximately £37 million turnover.

The highlighted items of £3.7 million (2022: £3.0 million) consist of the amortisation of acquired intangible assets of £2.5 million (2022: £2.7 million), one-off legal and other professional fees relating to ongoing and completed acquisitions and restructuring costs of £1.2 million (2022: £0.3 million). The effective rate of tax for the period was 20% (2022: 22%). The adjusted effective rate of tax, excluding highlighted items, was 19% (2022: 21%). Diluted earnings per share for the period, excluding highlighted items, grew by 14% to 17.47 pence (2022: 15.30 pence). Including highlighted items, profit before taxation grew by 8% to £14.0 million (2022: £12.9 million) and diluted earnings per share grew by 11% to 13.66 pence (2022: 12.30 pence).

Strategy

Bloomsbury’s long-term growth strategy is aimed at continuing our success in investing in high-value intellectual property and building digital channels, increasing quality revenues and earnings. To achieve this, we are focused on the following long-term strategic objectives:

• Non-Consumer
  • Goal: Grow Bloomsbury’s portfolio in Non-Consumer publishing. Non-Consumer publishing is characterised by higher, more predictable margins and greater digital and global opportunities.

  Achieved – H1 2023/24: delivered £47.3 million revenue, growing both Academic & Professional and Special Interest revenue

  • Goal: BDR target is to achieve 40% organic revenue growth over the five years to 2027/28, to reach approximately £37 million turnover.

  Achieved – On track to deliver new BDR target.

• Consumer
  • Goal: Discover, nurture, champion and retain high-quality authors and illustrators, while looking at new ways to leverage existing title rights.

     

    Achieved – H1 2023/24: Delivered 17% growth in Consumer revenue. Bestsellers included Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon, The Earth Transformed by Peter Frankopan, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett and Pub Kitchen by Tom Kerridge.

  • Goal: Grow our key authors through effective publishing across all formats alongside strategic sales and marketing.

     

    Achieved – H1 2023/24: 79% growth in sales of Sarah J. Maas’ titles.

  • Goal: As the originating publisher of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, to ensure that new children discover and read it for pleasure every year.

     

    Achieved – H1 2023/24: Sales of Harry Potter titles remain strong, 26 years after first publication. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the 4^th bestselling children’s book of the year to date on UK Nielsen Bookscan.

• International Expansion
  • Goal: Expand international revenues. Continuing our international growth and take advantage of the biggest academic market in the US.

    Achieved – H1 2023/24: increased overseas revenues to 76% of Group revenue (2022/23 H1: 73%).  US revenues increased to 46% of Group revenue (2022/23 H1: 36%).

• Employee Experience and Engagement; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

  Our success is driven by the expertise, passion and commitment of our employees, highlighting the importance of attracting, supporting and engaging our colleagues. We value diversity of thought, perspectives and experience in shaping our culture and strategy, driving our long-term success and informing the ways in which we fulfil our social purpose.

  • Goal: Be an attractive employer for individuals seeking a career in publishing, regardless of background or identity, adding cultural value to our business operations and performance.
  • Goal: Focus on initiatives to create an environment that promotes diversity, nurtures talent, stimulates creativity and collaboration, supports well-being and is inclusive and respectful of difference.
  • Goal: Implement Bloomsbury’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action Plan (“DEIAP”).
    

    Achieved – H1 2023/24:

  • In recognition for our work, we won the Small Cap Diversity & Inclusion Award;
  • Delivered a new, comprehensive medical insurance plan for UK employees;
  • Launched the Bloomsbury Mentorship Programme, to support unpublished, underrepresented fiction writers as they work to establish careers in publishing;
  • Launched the Academic & Professional Widening Access Fund pilot, to provide financial support for authors who may not otherwise be able to publish with us.
• Sustainability

• Goal: Maximise our use of sustainable resources while seeking to reduce carbon emissions in line with our science-based targets. We recognise our responsibility to conserve the Earth’s resources and we are committed to monitoring and improving the environmental impact of our operations.

 Achieved – H1 2023/24:

• Implemented improvements including reducing plastic shrinkwrap and components and increasing the sustainability of Osprey Games, and changing the paper used in some Adult hardbacks to reduce raw material and production resource, without affecting the quality of our print titles;
• Increased engagement with our print suppliers to gather more granular data on the paper used to produce our books, to enable better oversight of our emissions as well as our impact on nature and biodiversity;
• Supporting the Woodland Trust for three years.

Non-Consumer Division

The Non-Consumer division consists of Academic & Professional, including BDR, and Special Interest. Revenues in the division grew by 2% to £47.3 million (2022: £46.6 million). Profit before taxation and highlighted items for the Non-Consumer division was £5.9 million (2022: £7.1 million). Profit before taxation was £3.6 million (2022: £4.6 million).

Academic & Professional

Academic & Professional revenues were £36.4 million (2022: £36.5 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items was £5.9 million (2022: £7.3 million). Profit before taxation was £3.7 million (2022: £4.9 million). Digital sales accelerated, with ebook revenue growth of 23%.

The Academic & Professional profit margin was 16%, in line with 2022/23 full year margin. This reflects a normalised level of staff investment including the cost of living increases in the second half of last year. Last year’s first half margin of 20% benefitted from positive exchange rate movements as well as lower staffing.

Our BDR growth strategy is to build high margin, high quality, repeatable digital revenue from our market leading Academic and Professional IP. We consolidated last year’s exceptional 69% growth in the first half of the year and increased subscription revenue to 47% of the total (2022: 45%). Subscriptions to our high margin BDR products deliver repeatable revenue, with renewal rates maintained at over 90%.

Our strategy and acquisitions mean that we have been well placed to capitalise on the market growth to date as Academic Institutions pivoted at pace to digital learning, including in the US, where Academic Institutions received one-off benefits of additional government funding to support this. Notwithstanding the evolving funding environment for Academic Institutions, including the normalisation of funding in the US after the additional government support during the pandemic, we are confident in demand from the structural shift to digital learning and our BDR growth target of further 40% organic revenue growth over the five years to 2027/28, to reach approximately £37 million of sales.

Since the period end, Bloomsbury author Jon Fosse won The Nobel Prize in Literature. We are proud to publish six collections of his plays in the UK and US, making him the eighth Nobel Prize winner on Bloomsbury’s Methuen Drama list, joining Peter Handke, Dario Fo, Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, Luigi Pirandello, John Galsworthy and George Bernard Shaw.

Special Interest

Special Interest revenue increased by 7% to £10.9 million (2022: £10.1 million) and generated a small profit before taxation and highlighted items of £0.04 million (2022: £0.1 million loss before taxation and highlighted items). Bestsellers during the period included Wisden Cricketers Almanack, Reeds Nautical Almanac, Undaunted: Battle of Britain and The War Came To Us by Christopher Miller.

Consumer Division

The Consumer division consists of Adult and Children’s trade publishing. The Consumer division achieved strong revenue growth of 17% to £89.4 million (2022: £76.3 million). Profit before taxation and highlighted items increased by 26% to £11.2 million (2022: £8.9 million). Profit before taxation increased by 27% to £11.0 million (2022: £8.7 million). This strong performance was driven by the Children’s division, across backlist and frontlist titles.

Adult Trade

The Adult division achieved revenue growth of 8% to £27.6 million (2022: £25.7 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £0.1 million (2022: £0.2 million). Loss before taxation was £0.1 million (2022: £0.1 million profit). Revenue growth was driven by the strength of the frontlist and backlist.

Sunday Times bestsellers in the period included A Day of Fallen Night and The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee, The Book of Wilding by Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell and Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. New York Times bestsellers included A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon.

Recognition for our authors continued with The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng longlisted for the Booker Prize, I Saw Death Coming by Kidada E. Williams longlisted for the National Book Awards in Nonfiction and Trespasses by Louise Kennedy winning the McKitterick Prize as well as the British Book Awards 2023 Book of the Year – Debut Fiction.

Children’s Trade

Children’s revenue increased by 22% to £61.7 million (2022: £50.6 million). Profit before taxation and highlighted items increased by 29% to £11.1 million (2022: £8.7 million). Profit before taxation increased by 29% to £11.1 million (2022: £8.7 million). High demand for our strong titles continued the momentum from last year, with excellent sales of Sarah J. Maas’ titles.

Sales of the Harry Potter titles were strong. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the 4^th bestselling children’s book of the year to date on UK Nielsen Bookscan, 26 years after it first began, showing the enduring appeal of this classic series.

Sarah J. Maas sales grew by 79%, reflecting strong backlist sales across all three series: Court of Thorns and Roses, Throne of Glass and Crescent City. The Throne of Glass series were New York Times bestsellers during the period. All 15 of Sarah J. Maas’ titles have been published by Bloomsbury since her first novel, Throne of Glass, in 2012.

Revenues for the rest of the Children’s division were also good. Other highlights in the Children’s list included Sunday Times bestseller We’re Going on an Egg Hunt by Martha Mumford and Laura Hughes and New York Times bestsellers She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran and You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron. 

Cash and Financing

Bloomsbury’s cash generation continued to be strong with cash at 31 August 2023 of £39.1 million (2022: £41.5 million).

The Group has an unsecured revolving credit facility with Lloyds Bank Plc. The facility comprises a committed revolving loan facility of £10.0 million and an uncommitted incremental term loan facility of up to £6.0 million. At 31 August 2023, the Group had no draw down (2022: £nil) of this facility.

Acquisitions

Bloomsbury has a successful track record in strategic acquisitions, with 19 completed since 2008. We are actively targeting and assessing further acquisition opportunities in line with our long-term growth strategy, particularly in Academic and Professional.

Dividend

The Group has a progressive dividend policy aiming to keep dividend earnings cover in excess of two times, supported by strong cash cover.

Bloomsbury’s successful strategy of diversifying across formats, markets and territories has created a stronger and more balanced business and a smoother earnings profile across the year. Recognising this, and in view of a better balance between sales in the first and second halves of the year than in the past, when we were more heavily weighted to the second half and the Christmas market, we are increasing the proportion of the full year dividend paid at the interim. This new balance of the two halves is one of Bloomsbury’s greatest strategic achievements of recent years and is powered by our academic publishing.

In line with this rebalancing, the Board has declared an interim dividend of 3.70 pence per share, compared to 1.41 pence per share for the six months ended 31 August 2022.

The dividend will be paid on 1 December 2023 to Shareholders on the register on the record date of 3 November 2023.

Executive Committee – Adrienne Vaughan

In August, we suffered the terrible blow of the death of Adrienne Vaughan, President of Bloomsbury USA and member of Bloomsbury’s Executive Committee. Adrienne was a natural business leader with a great future ahead of her. She was deeply loved by colleagues due to her combination of great personal warmth with a fierce determination to make the business succeed and grow. Her business instincts were outstanding and she loved authors, readers and her colleagues equally.

Our hearts go out to Adrienne’s husband and children, parents, family and friends. Bloomsbury continues to do everything possible to support them.

Future Publishing

In Non-Consumer, we are focused on driving our digital – BDR and ebook – growth as the Academic pivot from print to digital content accelerates. Within BDR, we are continuing to expand the customer base for ABC-CLIO’s databases globally, expand Bloomsbury Collections to include ABC-CLIO titles as well as Bloomsbury frontlist, and expand BDR products with ABC-CLIO content.

Our strong Consumer publishing list for the second half includes the next new Sarah J. Maas novel, House of Flame and Shadow, the third in the Crescent City series, which will be published in January 2024. The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac, the official magical companion to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, is published in October 2023. The second half also includes Pub Kitchen by Tom Kerridge, Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, The Rest is History by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, Ghosts, the companion book to the BBC’s much loved television series, and the next title in our bestselling children’s series, We’re Going on a Ghost Hunt, by Martha Mumford and Cherie Zamazing.

Outlook

Bloomsbury is on solid foundations with significant financial resources available to augment organic growth and invest in acquisitions. Diversification in channels and markets continues to serve us well. We have continued to expand globally, with 76% of our revenue now generated outside the UK.

Our digital strategy anticipated the structural change in the academic market from print to digital learning; a trend which has accelerated and which gives us further confidence in our BDR strategy. Our strategy and acquisitions mean that we have been well placed to capitalise on the market growth to date as academic institutions pivoted at pace to digital learning. Notwithstanding the evolving funding environment for academic institutions, including the normalisation of funding in the US after the additional government support during the pandemic, we remain on track and confident in our BDR growth target of further 40% organic revenue growth over the five years to 2027/28, to reach approximately £37 million turnover.

The combination of all these factors underpins the confidence we have in the future. The strength of our first half performance means that we are confident of achieving market expectations for the year ending 29 February 2024.

The Board considers current consensus market expectation for the year ending 29 February 2024 to be revenue of £273.1 million and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £32.5 million.

Condensed Consolidated Interim Income Statement

For the six months ended 31 August 2023

The accompanying notes form an integral part of this condensed consolidated interim financial report.

Condensed Consolidated Interim Statement of Comprehensive Income

For the six months ended 31 August 2023

Items in the statement above are disclosed net of tax.

Condensed Consolidated Interim Statement of Financial Position

At 31 August 2023

Condensed Consolidated Interim Statement of Changes in Equity

At 31 August 2023

Condensed Consolidated Interim Statement of Cash Flows

For the six months ended 31 August 2023

Notes

Notes to the Financial Statements are available in the printable PDF version