27th Oct 2016 07:43
LONDON (Alliance News) - Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Thursday said it is trading in line with its expectations, continuing to expect a significantly second-half weighted full year, as it reported a fall in interim pretax profit.
For the half year to the end of August, Bloomsbury reported a pretax profit of GBP147,000, down from the GBP342,000 it reported in the first half of the prior year, despite revenue rising to GBP62.7 million from GBP52.7 million.
This was largely due to higher cost of sales, marketing and distribution costs and administrative expenses.
Bloomsbury attributed its revenue growth to a strong performance from its Children's Trade division, helped by key titles like the 'Harry Potter Box Set', the illustrated edition of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' and 'A Court of Mist and Fury' by Sarah J Maas.
The company noted that, like previous years, its results are "substantially weighted" towards the second half, with October being a peak period for academic book sales, and Christmas as the peak season for the sale of consumer books.
Bloomsbury noted that its print revenues rose 25% in the half and made up 87% of its total title revenues in the period, which it said demonstrated the continued demand for brooks in print format. Digital revenues rose 8%, which it attributed to an "excellent performance" by digital resources in its non-consumer division, despite a 4% fall in total e-book sales in line with industry trends.
Bloomsbury proposed an interim dividend of 1.10p, up 4% from 1.06p the previous year.
Looking towards the rest of the year, Bloomsbury highlighted upcoming titles including 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Newt Scamander: A Move Scrapbook' and 'Empire of Storms' by Maas.
"In the coming months we expect to deliver the platform and associated infrastructure to accelerate digital revenues in line with Bloomsbury's 2020 plan, and specifically to see the launch of the Arcadian Library Online and Bloomsbury Popular Music, the latest two resources in our growing range of digital products," said Chief Executive Nigel Newton in a statement.
Shares in Bloomsbury were up 2.7% at 152.56 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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