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LONDON (Alliance News) - Bloomsbury Publishing PLC saw increases in revenue and pretax profit in the half-year ended August 31 as it benefited from a new book programme and the sale of a few titles to be produced into films.
The company posted a pretax profit of GBP1.1 million, up 33% from GBP900,000 in the previous year. Revenues were GBP49.2 million, up 13% from GBP43.5 million.
Bloomsbury posted an interim dividend of 0.98 pence per share, up 4% from 0.94 pence in the previous year.
The rights of Samantha Shannon's 'The Bone Season', were acquired by 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment for a new film during the period. This, and sales of Khaled Hosseini's, 'And the Mountains Echoed' helped to drive a 77% increase in the company's Adult division, Bloomsbury said. New acquisitions Fairchild Books and Applied Visual Arts Publishing also contributed to rising revenues.
E-book revenues were up 14% overall to GBP5.1 million, particularly in the UK where e-book sales jumped 58%. In the US, however, e-book sales were down 20%.
The company cautioned that it expected results to be significantly second-half weighted due to peak sales times over Christmas and academic titles selling in Autumn to coincide with the beginning of the academic year.
"The group is well positioned to build on the success of the first-half of the year and continue to progress its strategy of leveraging Bloomsbury's significant intellectual property, its strong brand and innovative staff," Bloomsbury said.
Shares in Bloomsbury were trading up 0.81 pence at 173.06 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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