-Guidance confirmed at the the upper end of range
-Strong recovery in events business
-Share buyback more than doubled
Shares in information services and events company Informa (INF) jumped 2.6% on Thursday following a trading update which re-confirmed full year guidance at the upper end of the range and expanded the share buyback programme from £300 million to £750 million.
For the first five months of this year the group has achieved underlying revenue growth of more than 40%.
This has been driven by a strong recovery in the events business in Latin America, North America and the EMEA region. So far this year Informa has generated £400 million of sales from 200 events.
Due to covid restrictions the group has been unable to hold events in China. However in August Informa intend to run the first series of events in the region. Management expect to generate 60% of budgeted revenue from China this year.
The group also benefited from a 3.5% improvement in sales at academic book and journal publisher Taylor and Francis.
Strong growth in pay to publish, coupled with a consistent performance from advanced learning and pay to read has been another factor driving growth.
RAISED GUIDANCE
At the full year results in March the group provided full year revenue and operating profit guidance.
The range for revenue was £2.1 billion to £2.25 billion, with adjusted operating profit of between £470 million-and-£490 million.
Management has confirmed that Informa is on track to hit the upper end of this guidance.
The shares have fallen 4.6% over the last month, but on a six month basis are up 8.6%.
According to Numis estimates, Informa is trading on a 2022 price earnings ratio of 22.3x, falling to 16.4x next year. From 2022-2023 earnings per share are forecast to grow by 36% from 23p to 31.3p.
