Bloomsbury Regulatory News (BMY)

13 Jan 2005 07:01

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC13 January 2005 13 January 2005 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Pre-Close Period Update Bloomsbury Publishing Plc ('Bloomsbury' or 'the Group') announced that itexpects the Group's results for the year ended 31 December 2004, which will beannounced on 30 March 2004, to be in line with market expectations. Sales during the last three months of 2004 were strong in all three of theGroup's major markets. In the UK, we had a strong autumn list with The Two of Us- My Life with John Thaw by Sheila Hancock reaching Number 1 on the bestsellerlists and through A&C Black we published for the first time Reed's NauticalAlmanac, which sold in line with our expectations. In Germany, the marketcontinues to be difficult, but the successful launch of the new BloomsburyBerlin list is showing that there is considerable demand for the type of bookswe publish. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Schott's Original Miscellany areboth doing well on the new list with Schott also having reached Number 1 on DerSpiegel bestseller list. Bloomsbury USA's autumn list performed well, supportedby the Booker Prize winning book The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst andJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell which reached Number 1 on several US bestsellerlists. In December we confirmed that the sixth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and theHalf-Blood Prince, will be published on 16 July and this will clearly be animportant event for Bloomsbury this year. The acquisition of US publisher, Walker Publishing Company, Inc was completed on31st December and is already being integrated. The new company will be run byKaren Rinaldi who currently heads up Bloomsbury USA. Cost savings will be madethrough the combination of the two businesses, with Walker taking advantage ofthe favourable book printing rates Bloomsbury enjoys. Previously, Walker hassold on its paperback rights to other publishing houses and from 1 January 2005these will be retained for in house publication from 2006 onwards. We look forward to another good year in 2005 with the list of titles we havescheduled for publication. ENDS Enquiries:Tim Spratt/Charles PalmerFinancial Dynamics 020 7831 3113 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange