- Shares rise more than 8% in morning trading
- Profit and revenue to be ahead of expectations
- New platform launched for streaming academic content
Shares in Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY) were heading higher as the company brought forward a scheduled trading update to announce full-year profit would be ahead of expectations.
The shares rose more than 8% to 455.81p in morning trading as the Harry Potter publisher upgraded its earnings forecast for the 12 months ending 28 February 2023 due to strong demand.
The update was originally scheduled for 22 March but was announced a week early due to the positive news. Pre-tax profit is expected to come in at £30 million for the year ended 28 February 2023, and revenue is now expected to be more than £260 million, compared with consensus forecasts of £26.9 million and £242.6 million respectively.
Nigel Newton, Bloomsbury CEO said: ‘We have seen strong demand for our titles - in print, eBook and audio - and continued digital growth. Two of our strongest performances in the year have come from very disparate ends of our publishing strategy - fantasy novels on the one hand and academic digital resources on the other - showing how well our balanced consumer and academic portfolio is working in practice.’
READING REMAINS POPULAR
Newton added: ‘Reading remains hugely popular throughout the world with books regarded by many readers as an affordable pastime.’
Bloomsbury saw strong trading in its Consumer division, driven by frontlist and core backlist titles. Samantha Shannon's new novel, A Day of Fallen Night was published in February 2023 and became an instant bestseller worldwide.
Other bestsellers included Johan Hari's Stolen Focus and BAKE by Paul Hollywood. Strong backlist sales continued, in particular for Sarah J. Maas, as well as The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and Dishoom: From Bombay with Love by Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir.
STRONG DIGITAL GROWTH
The publisher has also achieved robust growth in Bloomsbury Digital Resources through leveraging their acquisition of ABC-CLIO.
ABC-CLIO provided Bloomsbury with exposure to the US high school library market, and opportunities for accessing wider, international markets with their products.
Bloomsbury has also launched a new platform for academic streaming content, called Bloomsbury Video Library, with more than 2,000 films spanning a range of subjects.
