News

« Headlines

Publishing rises at Informa

27.02.08 Tom Tivnan

Informa, the parent company of Taylor & Francis, has reported strong trading throughout its publishing, events and performance improvement businesses in 2007, according to results filed this morning (27th February).

Revenue for the year ending 31st December 2007 rose 9% to just under £1.13bn (2006: £1.04bn). Operating profit adjusted for material acquisitions and effects of changes in exchange rates jumped 19% to £261m, up from £219m.

In a statement, chairman Peter Rigby and c.e.o. David Gilbertson said: "All geographies and market sectors performed well. We are of course aware of the current uncertainty in the financial markets, but at this point the board sees no signs in our trading to alter its expectations that Informa will deliver another strong performance in 2008."

Publishing contributed 44% of revenue to the company, £495m, a 21% increase on 2006. Informa said that this reflected the "growing importance of this resilient revenue stream". Publishing accounted for 39% of revenue in 2006 and the company is predicting it will increase to about 50% of total revenues in 2008.

The publishing businesses was boosted by the continued shift to electronic distribution in the year, which has allowed margins to improve and the company to sell enterprise-wide information packages. "The higher prices this wider dissemination carries, coupled with growing income from electronic archive sales helped our Academic & Scientific business to grow its revenues by 15% and its adjusted operating profit by 25% in the year," the company said.

Informa now has a third of its total book catalogue in e-book format. The publisher has used advances in print on demand technology to cut costs and increase revenue, with the number of its p.o.d. books increasing by 50% in 2007.

The academic and scientific side performed better than the rest of the company: the STM and HSS businesses had a 15% increase in revenue to £339m (2006: £295m) and a 25% rise in operating profit to £97m from £78m.

Financial tom tivnan Informa

See Also