Bloomsbury Regulatory News (BMY)

15 Oct 2008 07:00



Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Interim Management Statement

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc is issuing the Interim Management Statement as required by the UK Listing Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules in respect of the period from 1st July 2008 to date.

Financial Performance

Group operating performance for the period is in line with management's expectations. 

Specialist Publishing Division

The Specialist Publishing Division, including A&C Black, continues to perform to management's expectations. 

We have made major progress in implementing the company's long term strategy with three important developments since the announcement of our interim results on 29th August, namely a new agreement with the Qatar Foundation, the launch of Bloomsbury Academic and the acquisition of Oxford International Publishers Limited.

We have signed an important strategic partnership with Qatar Foundation to help create a new publishing house in Qatar, which will be known as Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing. It has been created to promote a reading culture in the Middle East as well as to cultivate new literary talent. The publishing house will be under the ownership of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. It will be based in Doha and will publish books in both English and in Arabic focusing on books of excellence and originality in six areas: fiction and non-fiction for adults and for children, educational books for schools, academic books for universities and researchers, classics of Arabic literature, and reference books. The books will be published around the world through Bloomsbury's distribution network. The agreement operates initially from October 2008 to June 2014 with a contract value £7.55m.

This agreement extends Bloomsbury's current co-operation with Qatar, following the announcement last year of Qatar Finance - The Ultimate Resource, an ambitious print and online information resource for finance professionals, in partnership with the Qatar Financial Centre Authority. This will be published in October 2009.

On 5th September we announced that we are launching a new academic publishing imprint: Bloomsbury Academic. The imprint will initially publish in the Humanities and Social Sciences building thematic lists on pressing global issues. Our plan is to publish approximately fifty new titles online and in print by the end of 2009.

Bloomsbury Academic will be using a radical new model. All titles will be made available free of charge online, with free downloads for non-commercial purposes, immediately upon publication, using Creative Commons licenses. These allow the author to move away from the default position of 'all rights reserved' to a 'some rights reserved' position without losing control of the copyright or placing the material in the public domain. With the free online version acting as a showcase to libraries, institutions academics and students, the works will also be sold as printed books, using the latest short-run technologies and Print on Demand.

On 30th September we announced that we had acquired Oxford International Publishers Limited, trading as Berg Publishers ("Berg"), an independent academic publishing company with a focus on books and journals for the academic student market in the fields of fashion, design and culture studies. The initial consideration was £2.0 million which was satisfied in cash and shares. Berg is a market leader in its field, having pioneered the concept of fashion theory which is now a course widely taught at universities throughout the world. The company is in the process of creating a major online subscription-based resource, the Berg Fashion Library, for fashion students, lecturers and the broader industry. It is scheduled to be launched in 2010. The acquisition of Berg is an important element in our strategy to increase our presence in academic publishing and establish a strong position in a market that is already benefiting from electronic delivery and print-on-demand. Berg is an Oxford-based publishing company, established in 1982 and currently has 15 employees. Revenue for the year-ended 31 December 2007 was £1.58 million. The terms of the acquisition include deferred consideration based on the average revenues for the Berg Fashion Library element of the business in 2014 and 2015 up to a maximum of £1.0 million.

Trade Publishing Division

The Trade Publishing Division continues to perform to management's expectations. 

We continue to benefit from the success in the UK from a number of titles such as The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Just Me by Sheila Hancock was published on 18 September and following her previous bestseller The Two of Us. The book is Bloomsbury London; All A&C Black (London); Berlin VerLag receiving considerable coverage and is set to be one of our big titles for Christmas. On 29th September we published The Snowball, the definitive biography of Warren Buffet by Alice Schroeder. The book immediately became a number one bestseller on Amazon and has been shortlisted for the Financial Times Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Prize 2008. Other major titles include Heston Blumenthal's £100 Big Fat Duck Cookbook, JK Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard and Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard book.

Bloomsbury USA continues to perform to management's expectations. Both the adult and children's divisions are seeing publishing success and the new management structure has been implemented quickly and well. Future benefits will be seen as we build critical mass in the academic publishing market through Bloomsbury Academic and acquisitions such as Berg. The US operation will be used as a platform for Academic titles to be published there.

Berlin Verlag, is performing in line with expectations. Its list is performing well with continued success from 1000 Strahlende Sonnen (A Thousand Splendid Suns,) and Drachenläufer (The Kite Runner).

Outlook for 2008

Whilst the impact of the credit crisis will be far reaching in the global economy over the coming months, the Group nevertheless has a strong publishing programme in the lead up to Christmas and we are confident that, with their relatively low retail prices, books will continue to be in demand. We have also had considerable success in concluding a number of long-term database and management licences and contracts with leading organisations over the last eighteen months which provides for greater certainty of cash flow and profits for the foreseeable future and are not affected by the current economic turmoil.  We have a strong balance sheet which puts us in a good position to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

For further information, please contact:

Nigel Newton, Chief Executive, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

care of Bell Pottinger

Daniel de Belder / Rosanne Perry, Bell Pottinger +44 (0)20 7861 3232