22nd Apr 2015 06:23
LONDON (Alliance News) - Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier PLC reiterated its outlook for the full year, and said the simplification of its corporate structure and name change to RELX is on track to complete at the beginning of July subject to approval at its annual general meeting.
The company announced plans to transfer the assets of its UK and Dutch parent companies into a new single group entity called RELX Group PLC at the time of its full year results in February, although it will not change its brand or name for customer facing products and business units.
Reed Elsevier said that business trends in the first quarter of 2015 remained consistent with 2014 across the group.
It continued to focus on organic growth, it said, with limited acquisition activity of GBP28 million in the year to date.
In its Scientific, Technical and Medical units, business trends remained positive in the first quarter, and in primary research, it saw strong growth in article submissions and usage. Reed said it expects this business to achieve another year of modest underlying revenue growth.
In the Risk and Business Information business, Reed said it saw strong revenue growth across all key segments in the first quarter, with the Insurance segment achieving continued growth in the US auto and newer markets, and positive momentum continued in business services, government, healthcare and data services. The company said it expects underlying revenue growth trends in this business to continue.
In Legal the roll-out of new platform releases and usage continued to progress well, and Reed expects market conditions to continue to limit underlying growth in this segment for 2015, although it expects further improvement in profitability over the medium term.
Underlying revenue growth in Reed's Exhibitions business remained strong in the US and Japan during the first quarter, although more modest in Europe. Most of its other markets were strong, it said, but below levels it has achieved in recent years. It expects cycling effects to reduce its overall revenue growth rate in this business by 3-4% for 2015.
"We remain confident that, by continuing to execute on our strategy, we will deliver another year of underlying revenue, profit, and earnings growth in 2015," the company said in a statement.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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