Regulatory announcements

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc today announces results for the year ended 28 February 2013.

The highlights for the year ended 28 February 2013 include:

• Continuing* profit before tax and highlighted** items up 3% to £12.5 million (2012: £12.1 million)
• Continuing* profit before tax up 16% to £9.8 million (2012: £8.5 million)
• Continuing* turnover up 1% to £98.5 million (2012: £97.4 million)
• Total dividend increased by 5.8% to 5.50 pence per share (2012: 5.20 pence per share)
• Net cash increased to £14.6 million (2012: £12.6 million)

Operating highlights

• Academic & Professional business fulfilling promise
  • Successful development of academic list integrated with trade
  • Voted Academic, Educational and Professional Publisher of the Year at the Bookseller Industry Awards
  • Bloomsbury Academic & Professional voted Publisher of the Year by the Independent Publishers Guild
  • Now generates 29% of continuing Group sales (2012: 24%)
  • Acquisitions of Fairchild Books and Applied Visual Arts Publishing
• Digital sales continuing to flourish
  • Huge e-book growth with sales increasing by 61% to £9.1 million (2012: £5.7 million)
  • Innovative online knowledge hubs including The Churchill Archive and Drama Online
• Bestsellers across the Group
  • Strong performance from portfolio of high quality cookery books, including Paul Hollywood's How to Bake and Bread, Russell Norman's Polpo, and significant sales from established authors including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Heston Blumenthal, Raymond Blanc and many more
  • In the Children's and Educational division, highlights included Hogwart's Library by JK Rowling, Princess Academy: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale, Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas and Steve Jobs by Karen Blumenthal
• Major potential bestsellers for 2013 in Adult Division
  • And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
  • The Signature of All Thingsby Elizabeth Gilbert
  • The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
  • MasterChef: the finalists
  • The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson by Harry Mount

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

"This is an excellent performance.

Bloomsbury's core attributes of entrepreneurship, innovation, publicity flair and tight control of costs have led to the delivery of One Global Bloomsbury, and the future performance we have now set the stage for as we enjoy the synergies and sales advantages of having delivered a unified worldwide publishing group. In our strategy for growth we are targeting 50% of profit to be digital within five years, with Bloomsbury being the number one applied visual arts and independent humanities and social science publisher in Europe. Over that time we aim to be the number one publisher of choice in cookery, sport and natural history, with an Information division which has a global base delivering increasing revenues from digital knowledge hubs.

We start the year with a very strong programme led by today's publication of And the Mountains Echoed by bestselling author Khaled Hosseini"

* Continuing turnover and profit excludes Bloomsbury's former German subsidiary, Bloomsbury Verlag GmbH, which was sold on 28 February 2012, and which was treated as discontinued in the 2012 financial statements.

** Highlighted items comprises amortisation of intangible assets, professional fees on acquisitions, relocation of headquarters, restructuring costs, business set up costs and a gain on bargain purchase price.

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