Latest results

Audited Preliminary Results for the year ended 28 February 2022

Highest ever sales and profit

Bloomsbury, the leading independent publisher, today announces audited results for the year ended 28 February 2022. 

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

“Bloomsbury achieved its highest ever results with sales up 24% to £230.1 million and profits up 40% to £26.7 million. Sales were up 41% and profits up 70% from two years ago. Both the Consumer and Non-Consumer divisions gave outstanding and resilient performances, highlighting Bloomsbury’s unique strength in combining general and academic publishing.

The question on all of our minds was: would the pandemic surge in reading continue? We now know the answer: reading has become a reacquired habit and continues to thrive. The pandemic made us all re-evaluate how we spend our time and this has resulted in an increase in sales of books that enable us to explore our hobbies and personal interests such as cooking, fitness, history and reading novels for enlightenment and escape. Our Academic sales have benefitted from the structural shift to online learning. Our success continues to this date with good sales for Bloomsbury’s first quarter. The surge in reading, which seemed to be one of the only rays of light in the darkest days of the pandemic is perhaps now being revealed as permanent, with the simple act of reading shedding light and giving joy to millions of people.

The Consumer division revenue grew by 25%, continuing the momentum of last year, and achieved a 25% increase in profit before tax and highlighted items¹ to £17.8 million. The Non-Consumer division saw 23% revenue growth and a 68% increase in profit before tax and highlighted items¹ to £9.1 million. Consumer revenue was 53% higher and Non-Consumer revenue 24% higher than two years ago. Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”) outperformed the target set six years ago of £15 million of sales and £5 million of profit, with sales of £18.6 million, up 50% on last year, and profit of £6.8 million, up £3.9 million on last year. Following this success, we have set ambitious new growth targets for BDR.

Supporting our strong organic growth, we made three acquisitions during the year of ABC-CLIO LLC, the Red Globe Press list and Head of Zeus Limited.

In recognition of our strong performance and in line with our progressive dividend policy, the Board proposes a 24% increase in our final dividend to 9.40 pence per share.

Trading for 2022/23 has started in line with the Board’s expectations. Bloomsbury plans to invest robustly in continued organic growth and further acquisitions based on our strong financial position and proven strategy.”

Financial Highlights

Operational Highlights

Consumer Division

• Consumer revenue growth of 25% to £148.2 million (2020/21: £118.3 million)
• Consumer profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ increased by 25% to £17.8 million (2020/21: £14.2 million)
• Organic revenue growth was 18% and organic profit growth was 24%
• Adult Trade revenue up 26% to £55.2 million (2020/21: £43.7 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ of £2.0 million (2020/21: £3.9 million)
• Children’s Trade revenue growth of 25% to £93.0 million (2020/21: £74.6 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ up 52% to £15.8 million (2020/21: £10.4 million)
• Sales growth of Sarah J. Maas’ titles of 86%; Harry Potter sales still growing by 5% as the 25^th anniversary approaches
• Acquisition of Head of Zeus Ltd (“HoZ”) in June 2021, providing a strong addition to the Consumer division. HoZ contributed £9.0 million revenue and £0.1 million profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ to Adult Trade in the nine months since acquisition

Non-Consumer Division

• Non-Consumer revenue growth of 23% to £81.9 million (2020/21: £66.8 million)
• Non-Consumer profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ increased by 68% to £9.1 million (2020/21: £5.4 million)
• Organic revenue growth was 10% and organic profit growth was 40%
• Academic & Professional revenue growth of 34% to £59.3 million (2020/21: £44.3 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ up 111% to £9.1 million (2020/21: £4.3 million)
• Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”) revenue growth of 50% to £18.6 million (2020/21: £12.4 million) and profit of £6.8 million (2020/21: £2.9 million)
• BDR performance beat the target, set six years ago, of £15 million of revenue and £5 million of profit by the end of 2021/22
• Acquisition of ABC-CLIO, LLC (“ABC-CLIO”) in December 2021 for £16.7 million, further strengthening BDR and significantly accelerating Bloomsbury’s academic publishing in North America, growing international revenues
• Acquisition of the assets of Red Globe Press (“RGP”) completed in June 2021 for £3.2 million, accelerating our digital growth and our significant presence in humanities and social sciences academic publishing
• RGP contributed £6.2 million revenue and £1.0 million profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ and ABC-CLIO, contributed £2.2 million revenue and £0.6 million profit before taxation and highlighted items¹ to Academic & Professional

Notes

¹ Highlighted items comprise amortisation of acquired intangible assets and legal and other professional costs relating to ongoing and completed acquisitions and restructuring costs. (2020/21 also included a grant under the US Government Paycheck Protection Program.)

² Organic revenue for 2021/22 is defined as total revenue of £230.1m less revenue attributable to the acquisitions of HoZ, RGP and ABC-CLIO in the year. Organic profit for 2021/22 is defined as total profit before taxation and highlighted items of £26.7 million less profit attributable to the acquisitions of HoZ, RGP and ABC-CLIO in the year.

Chief Executive's statement

Overview

Bloomsbury achieved its highest ever performance in the year ended 28 February 2022, with revenue growth of 24% £230.1 million (2020/21: £185.1 million) and a 40% increase in profit before taxation and highlighted items to £26.7 million (2020/21: £19.2 million). Profit before taxation increased by 28% to £22.2 million (2020/21: £17.3 million).

Growth in organic revenue was 15%, with the three strategic acquisitions, ABC-CLIO, RGP and HoZ, contributing revenue of £17.4 million. Growth in organic profit before taxation and highlighted items was 28%, with ABC-CLIO, RGP and HoZ contributing £1.7 million.

The strength of demand for Bloomsbury titles and the excellent sales of our digital products, demonstrate the strength of our long-term growth strategy, the publishing judgement of our editors and the strength of our sales and marketing. During the year, Bloomsbury authors have won three of the most important prizes in the literary world - The Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and The Women’s Prize – which were won by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Winfred Rembert and Erin I. Kelly and Susanna Clarke respectively. We are immensely proud to publish them.

We achieved the major milestone for Bloomsbury Digital Resources (“BDR”) of significantly exceeding the target announced six years ago of £15 million of sales and £5 million of profit by the year ending 28 February 2022. We beat this target with sales of £18.6 million and profit of £6.8 million (2020/21: £2.9 million).  Achieving this goal of building high margin, quality revenues, demonstrates the strength and successful execution of our digital strategy. We saw growth due to the shift to digital learning, excellent digital products, platforms and infrastructure, with an 18% increase in the number of customers year-on-year. We have strengthened BDR with the acquisitions of RGP and ABC-CLIO.

The highlighted items of £4.6 million (2020/21: £1.8 million) consist of the amortisation of acquired intangible assets of £2.8 million (2020/21: £1.8 million), one-off legal and other professional fees relating to the three acquisitions and restructuring costs of £1.8 million (2020/21: £1.3 million) and, in 2020/21 only, a one-off US Government grant under the Paycheck Protection Program of £1.3 million. The effective rate of tax for the year was 24% (2020/21: 21%). The adjusted effective rate of tax, excluding highlighted items, was 19% (2020/21: 20%). Diluted earnings per share, excluding highlighted items, grew 39% to 25.94 pence (2020/21: 18.68 pence).  Including highlighted items, profit before tax was £22.2 million (2020/21: £17.3 million) and diluted earnings per share grew 22% to 20.33 pence (2020/21: 16.71 pence).

Strategy

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

• Non-Consumer Publishing and BDR
  
  • Grow Bloomsbury’s portfolio in Non-Consumer publishing.  Non-Consumer publishing is characterised by higher, more predictable margins, is less reliant on retailers and presents greater digital and global opportunities.  
    

    2021/22: delivered 23% growth in Non-Consumer revenue

  • Achieve BDR target of £15 million of sales revenue and £5 million of profit by 2021/22. 
  • 2021/22: delivered £18.6 million revenue, up 50%, and profit of £6.8 million, up £3.9 million.
    

• Consumer
  •   2021/22: Bestsellers included Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, Tom Kerridge’s Outdoor Cooking , and The Song of Achilles and Circe , both by Madeline Miller.
  • Grow our key authors through effective publishing across all formats alongside strategic sales and marketing.
    

    2021/22: 86% growth in sales of Sarah J. Maas title sales, with her new title: Crescent City: House of Sky and Breath reaching Number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Winner of the 2022 IPG Bookseller Marketing Award.
    

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

  2021/22: 5% growth in Harry Potter title sales, 24 years after first publication. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the 6^th bestselling children’s book of the year on UK Nielsen Bookscan.

• International Expansion
• Expand international revenues and reduce reliance on the UK market. Continuing our international growth in order to take advantage of the biggest academic market in the USA and reduce reliance on the UK market.

2021/22:  increased overseas revenues to 66% of Group revenue; 78% of Academic BDR sales are international. US revenues increased to 30% of Group revenue. Acquisition of ABC-CLIO significantly accelerates Bloomsbury’s academic publishing in North America, further growing international revenues.

• Employee Experience and Engagement; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • 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.
    
  • 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.
    
  • Implement Bloomsbury’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action Plan (DEIAP).

 2021/22:


• Developed our employee bonus scheme, ensuring the rewards of our financial success are fairly shared across all of our employees.
  
• Increased focused resource with the appointment of our Diversity and Inclusion and Training Administration Manager, with training pilots across the Company and a Leadership and Management Diploma for UK staff.
  
• Launched and begun implementation of our DEIAP, focusing on recruitment, retention, training and development, education, engagement and inclusion, publishing and communication.
  
• Became an official partner of the ‘Lit in Colour’ initiative with The Runnymede Trust and Penguin Random House.
  
• Winner of two major industry diversity awards, the Inclusivity in Publishing Award at the 2022 London Book Fair International Excellence Awards and Winner of the Diversity Award at the 2022 IPG Awards.

 

• Sustainability
  
  • We recognise our responsibility to conserve the Earth’s resources and we are committed to monitoring and improving the environmental impact of our operations.

2021/22:

• Set science-based targets, validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), to reduce carbon emissions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
  
• Committed to a 46% reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030; this reduction is aligned with pursuing efforts to limit global warming to 1.5^o C. We have achieved a 40% reduction since 2019/20.
  
• Our Scope 3 target is a 20% reduction in emissions by 2035. This reduction is in line keeping global temperature increase below 2^o C.
  
• Completed qualitative analysis of climate-related risks and opportunities for our business and operations and progressed adoption of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Consumer Division

The Consumer division consists of Adult and Children’s trade publishing. The Consumer division generated revenue growth of 25% to £148.2 million (2020/21: £118.3 million). Organic revenue growth was 18%. Profit before taxation and highlighted items increased by 25% to £17.8 million (2020/21: £14.2 million). Profit before taxation increased to £17.5 million (2020/21: £14.2 million). The excellent performance was from both the Adult and Children’s divisions, across front and backlist titles, and includes £9.0 million revenue and £0.1 million profit before taxation and highlighted items from HoZ, for the nine months since June 2021.

Adult Trade

The Adult division achieved a 26% increase in revenue to £55.2 million (2020/21: £43.7 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £2.0 million (2020/21: £3.9 million). Profit before taxation was £1.7 million (2020/21: £3.8 million). This was driven by bestsellers from our front and backlist, and includes the revenue and profit generated by the acquisition of HoZ.

UK bestsellers in the year included Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Tom Kerridge’s Outdoor Cooking, Animal by Lisa Taddeo, The Song of Achilles and Circe, by Madeline Miller, Gino’s Italian Family Adventure by Gino D’Acampo, Humankind by Rutger Bregman and The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper. US bestsellers in the year included The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends by Nicole Perlroth won the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year.

We are proud that Bloomsbury authors have won three of the most important prizes in the literary world – The Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and The Women’s Prize - which were won by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Winfred Rembert and Erin I. Kelly and Susanna Clarke respectively. We congratulate them all.

Children’s Trade

Children’s sales saw growth of 25% to £93.0 million (2020/21: £74.6 million). Profit before taxation and highlighted items increased by 52% to £15.8 million (2020/21: £10.4 million). Profit before taxation was £15.8 million (2020/21: £10.4 million). High demand continued the momentum from last year, with excellent sales of Sarah J. Maas’ new and backlist titles.

Sales of the Harry Potter titles increased by 5%. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the 6^th bestselling children’s book of the year on UK Nielsen Bookscan, twenty-four years after it first began, showing the enduring appeal of this classic series.

Sarah J. Maas’ sales grew by 86% compared to last year, with Crescent City: House of Sky and Breath, published in February 2022, reaching number one on the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller lists, and strong backlist sales.

Sarah J. Maas is the bestselling author of the Crescent City, Court of Thorns and Roses and Throne of Glass series, with all of her 15 titles published by Bloomsbury, since her first novel, Throne of Glass, in 2012. Hulu is developing a television adaptation of the Court of Thorns and Roses series for its streaming service.

Non-Consumer Division

The Non-Consumer division consists of Academic & Professional, including Bloomsbury Digital Resources, and Special Interest. Revenues in the division increased by 23% to £81.9 million (2020/21: £66.8 million). Profit before taxation and highlighted items for the Non-Consumer division increased by 68% to £9.1 million (2020/21: £5.4 million). Profit before taxation increased by 81% to £6.6 million (2020/21: £3.6 million). Organic revenue growth was 10% and organic profit growth was 55%, with RGP and ABC-CLIO contributing £8.4 million revenue and £1.6 million profit before taxation and highlighted items.

Academic & Professional revenues increased by 34% to £59.3 million (2020/21: £44.3 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items increased by 111% to £9.1 million (2020/21: £4.3 million). Profit before taxation was £6.7 million (2020/21: £2.7 million). Strong demand for our digital products delivered 50% growth in BDR revenue and print sales recovered well from last year, up 29%.

We are focused on achieving BDR growth by accelerating our most successful products, including Drama Online, leveraging platforms and content from acquisitions, building partnerships and launching new products. We achieved an 18% increase in the number of customers in the year, and maintained our existing customer retention rate at over 90%. We have further strengthened our portfolio of products with the acquisition of ABC-CLIO’s 32 digital databases and RGP’s three digital platforms.

In recognition of these achievements, we were voted Academic Publisher of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards and Education Publisher of the Year at the 2022 IPG Awards.

Special Interest revenue grew by 1% to £22.6 million (2020/21: £22.5 million), and broke even before taxation and highlighted items (2020/21: £1.1 million profit), with resilient demand for wildlife titles, Wisden and Osprey Games during the year.

Acquisitions

In June 2021, we achieved another key step in the delivery of our growth strategy for our Non-Consumer business, with the completion of the acquisition of certain assets of RGP, the academic imprint, from Springer Nature Group as previously announced. These RGP titles are a good strategic fit, strengthen Bloomsbury’s existing academic publishing, and establish new areas of academic publishing in Business and Management, Study Skills and Psychology. RGP’s digital product Cite them Right has been migrated to BDR’s own platform with further digital product migrations to follow. RGP’s relevant content will also be added to Bloomsbury Collections. The consideration was £3.2 million, of which £1.8 million was satisfied in cash on completion in June 2021 and £1.3 million was satisfied in cash post completion during the year, with an expected further £0.1 million to be satisfied post completion and post year end subject to assignment of certain contracts. The integration of RGP is going well and contributing as projected.

In June 2021, we completed the acquisition of the issued share capital of HoZ, the independent trade publisher, as previously announced. This acquisition provides a strong addition to Bloomsbury’s Consumer division and support our long-term Consumer growth strategy, with new high-quality authors and effective publishing across all formats, including ebook and audio. The consideration, net of pre-existing loans, was £7.0 million, of which £5.5 million was satisfied in cash at completion, with £1.1 million paid in cash post completion, and £0.4 million of deferred consideration payable in cash subject to achievement of Netflix release targets. HoZ won Publisher of the Year at the CWA Daggers Awards and The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper was a number one Times bestseller. Popular writers from HoZ include Dan Jones, Cixin Liu, Nadine Dorries, Victoria Hislop and Lesley Thomson. Cixin Liu’s bestselling science trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, is currently being filmed for Netflix by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, creators of HBO’s Game of Thrones. HoZ is contributing as planned.

In December 2021, we completed the purchase of the members’ interests of ABC-CLIO, as previously announced. ABC-CLIO is an established academic publisher of reference, non-fiction, online curriculum and professional development materials in both print and digital formats for schools, academic libraries and public libraries, primarily in the USA. Founded in 1955, ABC-CLIO is based in Santa Barbara, California. ABC-CLIO has four imprints and 32 databases that provide curriculum-aligned content and lesson plans, professional development support and student activities to US schools and academic institutions. It has more than 23,000 titles in its portfolio. The consideration was £16.7 million, of which £16.6 million was satisfied in cash on completion and up to £0.1 million will be satisfied in cash post completion.

Bloomsbury has a successful track record in strategic acquisitions, with 18 completed since 2008. We are actively targeting further acquisition opportunities in line with our long-term growth strategy.

Cash and Financing

Bloomsbury’s cash generation was strong with cash at the year end of £41.2 million (2021: £54.5 million) and cash conversion of 194% (2020/21: 142%). During the year we invested £26.6 million in cash consideration net of cash acquired for the acquisitions of ABC-CLIO (£16.3 million), HoZ (£6.6 million) and RGP (£3.1 million) and £1.0 million of capital expenditure in BDR. We also paid £7.9 million for the 2020/21 special dividend.

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 28 February 2022, the Group had no draw down (2021: £nil) of this facility.

Dividend

The Group has a progressive dividend policy aiming to keep dividend earnings cover in excess of two times, supported by strong cash cover. The Board is recommending a final dividend of 9.40 pence per share, totalling £7.7 million. Together with the interim dividend, this makes a total dividend for the year ended 28 February 2022 of 10.74 pence per share, a 21% increase on the 8.86 pence value of the dividend for the year ended 28 February 2021.

Subject to Shareholder approval at our AGM on 20 July 2022, the final dividend will be paid on 26 August 2022 to Shareholders on the register on the record date of 29 July 2022.

Including the proposed 2021/22 final dividend, over the past ten years, the dividend has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 8%.

Board Changes

As announced in March 2022, John Bason joined the Board as a Non-Executive Director on 1 April 2022. John also became a member of the Remuneration, Nomination and Audit Committees. We welcome John to the Board.

Steven Hall will step down from the Board at the conclusion of Bloomsbury’s 2022 AGM taking place on 20 July 2022. Steven joined the Board in 2017 and is the Chair of the Remuneration Committee. It is intended that Steven will be succeeded by John Bason as Chair of the Remuneration Committee.

Sir Richard Lambert, Chairman of Bloomsbury, said: “Steve Hall joined the Bloomsbury Board five years ago, and his deep knowledge of the world of academic and professional publishing has been an invaluable support to the Company as it has built its presence in this sector.  He has been a rigorous Chair of the Remuneration Committee, and a lively contributor to Board discussion. We owe him a big vote of thanks.”

Future Publishing

Our strong Consumer publishing list for 2022/23 includes the Illustrated edition of the fifth Harry Potter title, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Paul Hollywood’s Bake, A Visible Man by Edward Enninful, This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron, The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton, A Life in Light by Mary Pipher and Essex Dogs by Dan Jones. The next new Sarah J. Maas novel, the third in the Crescent City series, will be published in 2023/24.

2022 is the 25^th anniversary of the original publication of the first Harry Potter, with a special anniversary edition publishing in June 2022 and a series of exciting marketing activities to celebrate this milestone.

Our BDR strategic initiatives include bringing ABC-CLIO’s 32 databases into Bloomsbury Digital Resources, enabling Bloomsbury to scale ABC-CLIO’s digital offering globally. In addition, we will expand Bloomsbury Collections to include the RGP titles and migrate RGP’s digital products to BDR’s own platform.

Outlook

Trading for 2022/23 has started in line with the Board’s expectations.

Bloomsbury aims to deliver continued success, given the strength and resilience of our proven strategy, combined with our strong financial position, which enables us to invest in continued organic growth and further acquisition opportunities. Digital sales continue to materially increase and are a growing proportion of both revenue and profits. 

Audited Consolidated Income Statement

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 28 FEBRUARY 2022

Audited Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 28 FEBRUARY 2022

Items in the statement above are disclosed net of tax.

Audited Consolidated Statement of Financial Position

Audited Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity

AS AT 28 FEBRUARY 2022

Audited Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 28 FEBRUARY 2022

Notes

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