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LONDON (Alliance News) - Bloomsbury Publishing PLC said Tuesday its performance in the new financial year will be "well ahead" of expectations, as it reported increased profit and revenue for 2018 financial year.
For the year to February-end, the book publisher increased its pretax profit 23% to GBP11.7 million from GBP9.4 million the year before.
Total revenue increased by 13% to GBP161.5 million from GBP142.6 million the previous year. Revenue from overseas customers, which account for 63% of total revenue, increased 16% to GBP101.2 million.
Bloomsbury's consumer division had an "exceptional year" as its revenues increased 20% to GBP102.2 million from GBP85.4 million the year before on the back of a "strong" performance by Children's and Cookery books.
Children's books revenue increased 24% to GBP69.2 million from GBP55.9 million as the sales of the Harry Potter series grew 31%. The release of a special edition twentieth anniversary Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone book contributed to this.
Bloomsbury is proposing a final dividend of 6.36 pence per share, up from 5.60p, making a total dividend of 7.51p per share - 12% up from last year's 6.7p total dividend.
Looking ahead, Bloomsbury said it has a "strong" autumn book list, including, an illustrated version of The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K Rowling, a "major" new cookery book by Tom Kerridge and a tie-in book with the film release of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
The acquisition of I.B. Taruis & Co Ltd academic publishers, a focus on digital revenues, along with already announced partnerships with Spotify and the British Film Institute has led Bloomsbury to expect its financial year 2019 performance to be "well ahead" of previous expectations.
Chief Executive Nigel Newton said: "I am delighted with the performance of our business over the last twelve months. It has been a great year that has put Bloomsbury in a very strong and exciting position. We have seen significant progress in both segments of our business."
"In Non-Consumer, our Academic & Professional division continues to benefit from the Bloomsbury 2020 strategic growth initiative as we look to accelerate digital revenues significantly and become a leading publisher in the business to business academic and professional market.
"Bigger Bloomsbury marks the next exciting step in our growth, focussing on our key growth drivers with targeted strategies across the business to help grow our revenues and improve our margins over the next five years."
Shares in Bloomsbury Publishing were up 6.9% Tuesday to 221.20 pence each.
