A lawyer battling a medical malpractice lawsuit often relies on details about similar cases, previous judicial rulings and expert witnesses to decide whether to settle or go to court. RELX (REL) addresses those needs with its MedMal Navigator product, which leverages the group's enormous databases and powerful analytical software. Strong demand for these types of 'decision tools' drove the information and events giant's underlying operating profits up 5 per cent to £1.82bn.
Underlying sales and operating profits rose across all four of RELX's divisions. Both climbed 7 per cent in the risk and business analytics segment; that reflected brisk trading in the US auto underwriting market, strong demand for insurance workflow solutions and mounting interest from financial and corporate customers for fraud detection solutions. The laggard was the key scientific, technical and medical business, as solid demand for subscription journals and electronic reference products was partly offset by falling sales of print books.
Management shored up the group's portfolio, making £73m-worth of disposals and shelling out £171m on 19 small acquisitions. That included 10 takeovers in the exhibitions business, which also benefited from the launch of 44 new events and strong showings in the US and Japan.
Broker Investec expects to lift its EPS forecast by about 3 per cent to around 67p for 2016, up from an estimated 60.3p in 2015.
| RELX (REL) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 1,249p | MARKET VALUE: | £26.4bn | |
| TOUCH: | 1,248-1,249p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 1,269p | LOW: 989p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.4% | PE RATIO: | 27 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 99p* | NET DEBT: | 174% | |
| Year to 31 Dec | Turnover (£bn) | Pre-tax profit (£bn) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 6.00 | 0.95 | 32.4 | 21.6 |
| 2012 | 6.12 | 1.15 | 44.8 | 23.0 |
| 2013 | 6.04 | 1.20 | 48.8 | 24.6 |
| 2014 | 5.77 | 1.23 | 43.0 | 26.0 |
| 2015 | 5.97 | 1.31 | 46.4 | 29.7 |
| % change | +3 | +7 | +8 | +14 |
Ex-div: 28 Apr Payment: 20 May *Includes intangible assets of £8.39bn, or 389p a share †Turnover and pre-tax profit are for the combined Anglo-Dutch entity, while earnings and dividend per share are for RELX plc | ||||
