Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY) delivered solid numbers for the year to February 2019, with adjusted pre-tax profits up 9 per cent to £14.4m – exceeding market expectations. This metric excludes amortisation and other fees tied to its £5.6m acquisition of IB Tauris (IBT) last May. But, to its credit, IBT contributed £2.5m of revenues and £0.4m of adjusted profits over 10 months
IBT sits within Bloomsbury’s academic and professional segment, which enjoyed a 13 per cent rise in revenues to £41.2m – bolstered by the ‘Bloomsbury Digital Resources 2020’ programme. In turn, revenues for the broader non-consumer business edged up by 7 per cent to £63.4m, with adjusted operating profits more than doubling to £3.6m.
By contrast, operating profits for the consumer business slipped 6.1 per cent to £10.7m – helped by adult sales, but hindered by a tough comparative in the children’s market. Last year marked Harry Potter’s 20th anniversary – creating “one of the highest levels of revenue since the initial publications”.
Broker Numis had expected adjusted pre-tax profits of £16.2m and EPS of 16.2p for FY2020. Analysts there were reviewing their forecasts at the time of writing, although these were “unlikely to change materially”.
| BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING (BMY) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 235p | MARKET VALUE: | £177m | |
| TOUCH: | 230-239p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 257p | LOW: 187p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 3.4% | PE RATIO: | 19 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 191p* | NET CASH: | £27.6m | |
| Year to 28 Feb | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2015 | 111 | 9.6 | 11.9 | 6.10 |
| 2016 | 124 | 10.4 | 13.0 | 6.40 |
| 2017 | 143 | 9.4 | 9.8 | 6.70 |
| 2018 | 162 | 11.6 | 12.2 | 7.51 |
| 2019 | 163 | 12.0 | 12.4 | 7.96 |
| % change | +1 | +3 | +2 | +6 |
| Ex-div: | 25 Jul ** | |||
| Payment: | 23 Aug | |||
*Includes intangible assets of £66.8m, or 89p a share. ** Ex-div date changed as per company RNS release on 22 May 2019 | ||||
