21st May 2019 09:36
LONDON (Alliance News) - Bloomsbury Publishing PLC boosted its annual dividend Tuesday after profit and revenue grew in a "very strong" year for the Harry Potter publisher.
For the financial year ended February, pretax profit widened 3.4% to GBP12.0 million from GBP11.6 million the year prior. This was after revenue rose 0.7% to GBP162.7 million from GBP161.5 million the year before.
"Bloomsbury had a very strong year," Bloomsbury Chief Executive Officer Nigel Newton said. "Our results, with profits before tax and highlighted items up 9%, demonstrate the underlying strength, resilience and further potential of our global publishing strategy."
Excluding costs associated with its GBP5.6 million acquisition of IB Tauris in May 2018, adjusted pretax profit rose 9.1% to GBP14.4 million from GBP13.2 million the year prior.
Newton explained its Academic & Professional unit produced an "outstanding" performance, with its Adult division also producing an "exceptional" result.
"A year ago, I announced the Bigger Bloomsbury strategy; we have delivered all seven initiatives, including improving our working capital by reducing inventories by GBP2 million and growing Academic & Professional digital resource revenue by 42%," Newton added. "These initiatives focus on our key growth drivers with targeted strategies across the group to help grow our revenues and increase our margins over the next four years."
Bloomsbury proposed a 6.75 pence per share final dividend, up 6.1% from 6.36p the year prior. For the full year, the dividend rose 6.0% to 7.96p from 7.51p the year before.
Newton continued that the "strong" financial position of the firm and "excellent" cash generation gives the firm "great opportunities for further acquisitions and investment in organic growth."
Shares in Bloomsbury were 0.4% higher at 235.00 pence on Tuesday.
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