The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Sales dip, profits up at Bloomsbury

29.08.08 Philip Jones

Bloomsbury Publishing saw sales dip but profits rise in the first half of 2008, according to interim results. The sales drop came despite strong performances at four out of five of its business divisions. Sales were up 34% in its trade business, up 78% at Berlin Verlag, up 22% at its specialist publishing division, up 10% at Bloomsbury USA, but down 53% at its children's unit.

Revenue at the group for the first six months was £42.1m compared to £51.4m in 2007, with the sales drop linked to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into the export markets in June 2007. Profit before investment income increased 6.1% to £3.5m, compared with £3.3m a year earlier.

Nigel Newton, chief executive, said: "We have had a good first half performance, particularly, in the UK Adult and Specialist Divisions. As well as continuing to enjoy notable success from long-running bestselling titles such as The Kite Runner, we are also well positioned with strong publishing lists for the second half and beyond." Bloomsbury said that 29.6% of its revenue was generated from its top ten authors during the six-month period.

The group ended the period with £53.8m of cash on deposit, which it said would enable the business to take advantage of opportunities for "company and book acquisitions". The cash pushed investment income up by 216.7% to £1.9m, leading to a pretax profit of £5.4m. compared with £3.9m a year ealier.

Divisionally, its specialist division recorded sales of £7.6m, up 22%, with profit before administrative expenses of £2.4m. Bloomsbury said it was engaged in an active process of digitising out of print titles in order to offer them as print-on-demand. Trade publishing witnessed sales growth of 34% to £20.5m, with profit of £6.7m. Bloomsbury said that sales of its books out of UK outlets monitored by Nielsen BookScan showed an increase of 29.2% over the same period last year.

Children's publishing saw a 53% drop in sales to £14m, because of the Harry Potter exports recorded in the same period last year. Its profit was £3.6m down from last year's £9.6m. Its international divisions, Bloomsbury USA reported sales up 10% to £6.4m, but it made a loss of £354,000, about half the loss it reported last year; while Berlin Verlag saw sales rise 78% to £6.1m, with a reported profit of £506,000, down 16% on last year. 



 

 


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