Bloomsbury Publishing H2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 22, 2025

There are 20 speakers on the call.

Operator

welcome to everybody. Welcome to particularly the analysts and the brokers here in the room and then also to our shareholders. This is the first time we're webcasting the this presentation, which is very welcome.

Operator

So we know that there will be many more shareholders and potential shareholders. And then also as importantly we've got all of our colleagues at Bloomsbury will be joining us by webcast. So that's a very good movement forward. Now this morning you can see that there's a very large lineup of people in front of you. So maybe I might explain what that's about.

Operator

So you're obviously very used to Nigel Newton who's Founder and Chief Executive, Penny Scott Bayfield who's Finance Director to really lead the presentation and to do the Q and As and they've been ably supported just over the last year or so by by Tamsin Garrity. But you've obviously got a number of other people here in front of you. You've actually got the executive committee of Bloomsbury and I think it really was a reflection of the development of Bloomsbury over really quite quickly over a number of years and not least the year that we're we're looking at, but I think giving you the visibility of the team that runs Bloomsbury, we thought was a very good idea. I hope you agree with that as well. So they are going to be each presenting and we'll try and keep to time this morning.

Operator

They each are going to present in their individual areas and then we should have time for Q and A at the end and of course what we'll do is I think to try and just keep it in an orderly fashion, we'll if you could maybe give your questions to Penny and then I think Penny and Nigel will respond to most of those questions. So I think we've got a great set of results to present to you and a number of developments that have either landed or will land in this current financial year. So to talk more about that, I'll hand over to Nigel. Thank

Speaker 1

you. Well, good morning, everyone, and a warm welcome again and great thanks to John. We were very fortunate at our AGM in July when John Basin became Chairman of Bloomsbury in succession to Sir Richard Lambert, and we are powering ahead under his leadership. So today, we're going to talk to you about our strategy of diversification, which has created a portfolio of portfolios, much as all of you who are fund managers do in your own portfolios, balancing the vicissitudes of one area off against another. So we believe we have created a long term resilience model for success in our combination of our unusual combination of academic and general publishing.

Speaker 1

Results are strong, and the year is broadly in line with expectations in constant currency. One of our major announcements is the opening of a new office in Singapore to capitalize on the large growth in student numbers, which is projected to occur in Asia quite significantly by 02/1930 and very dramatically by 02/1940. Secondly, we are progressing opportunities to monetize our academic content through AI deals, and we are seeking ones which will best serve our authors' interests. Bloomsbury was voted Publisher of the Year, Hurrah, at the British Book Awards last Monday in recognition of the incredible work of our teams. So going on to the next slide.

Speaker 1

Last year, we launched our Bloomsbury two thousand and thirty Vision, which many of you were present for the launch at 8 Bishopsgate. Since then, we have made our largest acquisition to date, Roman and Littlefield. Since then we were admitted in August to the FTSE two fifty. Since then, we've earned the Great Place to Work certification based on the views of our own staff about the company. And finally, we've expanded our portfolio and continue to diversify for ongoing success.

Speaker 1

I'm very pleased now to hand over to my great colleague, Penny Scott Bayfield.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Nigel. So morning, everyone. So starting with the key financial highlights. So firstly, revenue for the year was $361,000,000, up 5%. We made a profit of £42,100,000 so a 12% margin.

Speaker 2

And as a reminder, as you well know, this is after last year's exceptional results. Our diluted EPS was 41.45 p, reflecting our profit and a slightly lower effective tax rate. And then moving on to net cash, which was £17,000,000 and as you know, this is net of our £24,000,000 sterling loan, which we took out to help fund our largest acquisition, Roman and Littlefield, in the first half. And then our final dividend up 5%. So we'll talk more about that later.

Speaker 2

Coming on to revenue, this is really again showcasing the strengths of digital and the resilience of print. With print, you see the impact of our acquisition of Roman Littlefield with the consumer print in line with last year. Again, you remember, many of you remember how just how strong that was. Ebooks continued to grow and that was driven by a 13% increase in our consumer ebooks. So really interesting to see how those that demand for different formats is so strong.

Speaker 2

And then coming on to audio, which as you many of you know, we've been excited about for some time, and in fact, Kathleen will talk more about later, we saw that growth accelerating again. So that's up 57% on top of our 50% growth last year. And BDR delivered 2% growth, very resilient in a challenging market. And Jenny will talk more about both the BDR and the markets later. And so coming on to the strength of our balance sheet, which many of you know is always a key, very close to my heart.

Speaker 2

So I mentioned net cash of £17,000,000 that's net of our £24,000,000 sterling loan. And we used our strong cash generation this year to pay £6,000,000 of that off early. So that's a three year loan, but we've already started to pay that off. And we reduced our working capital, positive, and then goodwill and intangibles obviously increased because of the, the acquisition of Roman and Littlefield. So moving on to our cash flow, you can see here the strength of our trading, that 42,000,000 profit enormously helping our cash.

Speaker 2

We've been able to reward shareholders, which is such a key priority for us with 12,000,000 of dividends. And you can see here the acquisition of R and L for 65,000,000. And here, again, you see that benefit of the reduction in the working capital, again, really helping our cash flow. And then moving on to show you, very pleased to show you another year of dividend growth with that 5% increase in the final dividend on top of our five percent increase in the interim dividend and reiterating that we're very committed to our progressive dividend. So I will now hand you over to Tamsin and it is a coincidence that we are in the same color.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Penny. So management has built a portfolio of portfolios which has the benefit of being diversified both across consumer and academic publishing and internationally, enhancing our resilience. We have grown earnings 155% over the last five years and maintain our strong dividend track record with a 5% total increase in 2024, '20 '20 '5,

Speaker 4

which reflects both the achievements in this financial year and the confidence that we have in

Speaker 3

the company being well positioned for further development. Then moving on to Investor Relations, which is my role. We have been proactively increasing engagement with shareholders over the last eighteen months. We have increased analyst coverage from two to six with high quality initiation reports, increasing visibility and knowledge in the market. So thank you all.

Speaker 3

Many of you are in this room. We joined the FTSE two fifty in August 2024 and continue to be ambitious. Our ongoing task is to expand our geographic reach of our shareholder base. We are working with Investec on an upcoming U. S.

Speaker 3

Roadshow, Berenberg in Europe and those plus Deutsche Numis, Singers and Pillhunt on roadshows and engaging new shareholders. We're pleased to say overall we have doubled our shareholder meetings, attended many conferences, most notably Berenberg's whose conferences have been referred to by The Times as Love Island for Suits. And now I would like to introduce my award winning colleague, Ian Hudson, Managing Director of Consumer Publishing.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Tamsin. The greater diversification of our consumer portfolio was really shone through this year with real breadth of both critical success and commercial success across multiple genre. We enjoyed particular success with our cookery, with best selling titles on air fryers, slow cookers, Greek cuisine, and plant based cooking. Non fiction delivered several major titles ranging from William Dalrymple's The Golden Road, which was a best seller in The UK, The US, and India for thirty five weeks, through to Gillian Anderson's Want, which topped The UK bestseller charts for four consecutive weeks and generated significant foreign rights income. Fiction successes included Samantha Shannon's Bone Season series, Sarah J Maas, of course, and Anne Patchett's Tom Lake.

Speaker 4

In children's, successes included Christmas at Hogwarts, which was our biggest selling Harry Potter title last year. And this coming year, we have Pocket Potters, which everybody should look out for because I think it will be a significant international success. Our collective effort was rewarded last week by being voted Publisher of the Year 2025 at the British Book Awards for our adult publishing. A very public recognition of our growth journey, our talented teams, and the breadth and depth of our author talent. Moving on.

Speaker 4

Bloomsbury has a rich history for building new consumer bestsellers, institutionalizing our luck as Nigel often says. With Poppy Cooks with the Poppy Cooks series, we have taken a social media star and turned her into a best selling author and helped us establish her as a regular on TV, a virtuous circle. With Gillian Anderson's Want, we work closely with Gillian to create and launch a collection of anonymous fancy submissions from the general public. Combined with an outstanding sales marketing and publicity campaign, thank you very much, Kathleen, It became a huge bestseller, and our publicity team won campaign of the year at the British Book Awards, with the judges referring to it as an all company, all guns blazing campaign. In children's, we continue to create new Harry Potter product in house.

Speaker 4

And in 2025, as I mentioned a moment ago, we will have the Pocket Potter series, and it has potential to be a really truly international bestseller. We also though continue to build other properties and Catherine Rundell's sales have enjoyed significant success with the paperback of Impossible Creatures. We have the next book in the series, The Poison King, coming this year. I'd now like to hand over to Jenny Rideout, MD of our Academic and Professional Publishing. Jenny?

Speaker 5

Thank you very much, Ian, and good morning, everybody. So academic and professional revenue grew 18%, and our profit margin expanded to 15% following the acquisition of Roman and Littlefield. Organically, revenue reduced by 10% as the academic and professional market is experiencing budget pressures in The U. K. And The U.

Speaker 5

S. We are optimistic given the growth in the overall addressable market, with global student numbers potentially reaching £600,000,000 by 02/1940 and with 60% of these in Asia. We already have Bloomsbury offices in Australia and India, and we will launch a new office in Singapore in 2025 to capitalize on the growing region. Regarding AI, we are progressing the opportunity to monetize content through AI deals, and we will be mindful of our responsibility to our authors in this process. The acquisition of Roman and Littlefield in May of last year was our largest to date, and integration is progressing well.

Speaker 5

Roman and Littlefield contributed £19,800,000 revenue in the nine months since acquisition. The talent and the content have been game changing for us, broadening and deepening our offering, and we are excited about continuing to digitize into the BDR platform. BDR grew 2% with trends consistent with those highlighted at the interims. Renewals rates remains at 90%, demonstrating resilience of demand for the product. We reiterate our ambitious target of £41,000,000 revenue by the year end twenty twenty seven-twenty twenty eight, benefiting from the expansion into new subject verticals and sales expansion.

Speaker 5

And then finally, this next wonderful slide depicts some of our leading brands in special interest. And the beady eyed of you might be wondering where Wisdom is. It's actually in the picture there with Sarah Broadway, who heads up special interests there at the Wisdom Almanac at Lourdes launch at Lourdes in April. So now I will hand over to Sabrina McCarthy, our President of Bloomsbury U. S.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Thank you, Jenny. Good morning, everyone. We launched the Bloomsbury twenty thirty vision this time last year with three pillars of growth, portfolio, and people. In terms of growth, this year, we set out to accomplish three key goals. First, growth through acquisition, which we accomplished in May via the Bromann and Littlefield purchase.

Speaker 6

And we look forward to more opportunities of this sort. Second, growth through global diversification, and we now have 78% of revenue coming from outside of The UK market, and we're continuing to expand. As The US leader, I'm proud to highlight that Bloomsbury is now one of the top 10 commercial publishers in The US. This year, we've had a number of New York Times bestsellers. Among them, you see two here, Blind Spots by Marty Makary and All the Blues in the Sky by Renee Watson.

Speaker 6

Our third key goal for the year was growth via speed to market, increased efficiency, and scale. And we have recently completed one of the largest distribution moves here in The UK by transitioning Heschette UK to Heschette UK distribution. We thought you might like an idea of the scale of that operation in this video.

Speaker 7

This is the celebration of Bloomsbury and the Hachette UK distribution. Today marks pretty much the completion of the pre go live project, which has been going on for thirteen months now.

Speaker 8

For many Bloomsbury staff, this is the

Speaker 7

first time we've been to the warehouse. Could you

Speaker 8

please describe today in just one word?

Speaker 2

Exciting.

Operator

Beginning.

Speaker 9

I would say joyous.

Speaker 8

We're going to go on a tour with Matt, Mark from Hashep, and of course, Nigel.

Speaker 10

This is a good scene department. So this is essentially where we receive all the books into the warehouse. We can receive up to about 500 pallets a day into this area, equivalent of about, 500,000 books. And essentially, this is where it all starts.

Speaker 7

We've moved 7,000,000 Bloomsbury books over 16,000 titles. We're gonna move files for over 65,000 POD titles. We have moved a 10,000 records from our Biblio system into HUKD's SAP system. We've done a lot of work here, and we're all very, very excited at what's a new era for Bloomsbury.

Speaker 8

How do you feel seeing the first bots?

Speaker 10

It's amazing to have Bloomsbury in and going live, and this is the first of thousands, if not millions, in the years ahead.

Speaker 1

Trillions. It's so wonderful that we're all meeting our opposite numbers.

Speaker 9

It's been absolutely brilliant. Just the most exciting partnership. I can't wait.

Speaker 11

Good morning, everyone. I'm Maja Abudib, and I'm General Counsel and Company Secretary. In the Bloomsbury two thousand and thirty vision, the portfolio goals include becoming the most successful independent publisher in the humanities and social sciences, which we have made huge strides in over the last year, and Jenny has detailed our optimism for the midterm outlook. In our Consumer division, we have delivered 3% growth on top of an extraordinary year last year and have bestsellers across genre in our portfolio. I will now hand over to Karl Burnett, Director of People and Engagement.

Speaker 12

Thank you, Mayor. Good morning, everyone. You will have heard Sabrina talk about the three pillars of our 02/1930 Bloomsbury vision, and the third pillar is around our people. And our ambition there is, in simple terms, to be the best place to work in publishing. And we believe we're well on our way to achieving this, and that's evidenced through the staff survey that we completed by all of our employees that led us to being awarded Great Place to Work certification in all four of the countries where we have offices.

Speaker 12

We're building the breadth and the talent of the team, doing that through attracting major talent from across the industry and beyond, not to mention our 100 or so colleagues from Roman and Littlefield. We've created a senior leadership team with representation across the entire business, and we have multiple training and networking opportunities to help shape the future of Bloomsbury. And now I'll hand over to Kathleen Farrah, our Managing Director of Group Sales and Marketing.

Speaker 9

Thanks, Carl. Hello. Audio is a high growth area for us with revenue up 57% on last year. Therefore, we thought it was time it took the spotlight. We have an award winning team who have built a strong backlist, engaged high profile narrators and continue to innovate in this exciting market.

Speaker 9

In November 2024, we launched our audio catalog on Spotify, expanding the potential for us and the market and we are delighted to see the breadth of the Spotify audience across our range of audiobooks. Now on to our upcoming titles. Many of our new titles for twenty fivetwenty six are from our bestselling authors such as Samantha Shannon, Katharine Rundell, Elizabeth Gilbert, Paul Hollywood and Tom Kerridge. We want to highlight titles already bestselling in The U. S.

Speaker 9

This year such as Money, Lies and God, The Trouble with Heroes as our U. S. Team goes from strength to strength. In academic and professional, we're very excited for the launch of two key brand partnerships. The first with Marvel for Marvel Age of Comics series starting in November and the second with Spotify with their tie in audio editions of 33 and onethree.

Speaker 9

Looking to our innovative publishing of the Harry Potter series, we are publishing Pocket Potters with a book per character, which is nicely timed to benefit from new screen adaptations. And with our lead titles in mind, we thought you might like a little insight into our team selling the full depth and breadth of our list at the London Book Fair. And here is

Speaker 1

believe it was. Hundreds and hundreds of meetings with publishers from all over the world and it's just a huge engine of business for us. So how is that? One year's activity in twenty six minutes, speed reporting. And so it falls to me to give you the summary and outlook.

Speaker 1

We've seen yet again in the last year the flywheel effect spinning its virtuous circle of investment in content, driving demand and generating cash to fund further investment. Over the next year, we are trying to capitalize on that huge growth in student numbers projected in Asia by opening an office in Singapore. A great deal of work has gone into studying exactly how we should tackle the market, and we're starting with our academic list. You've seen the deals done by our large academic competitors in AI training deals. These deals are very significant, and we are now engaged in that at the moment.

Speaker 1

And we are prioritizing the best interests of our authors because it's a very complex world, what the implications of it are going to be. So we're doing it very carefully and sensitively. Finally, trading is expected to be broadly in line with consensus expectations in constant currency. Here's one of my favorite slides to follow, the Publisher of the Year award, which was given particularly to our Adults division run by Ian and Kathleen. It was a very exciting moment.

Speaker 1

It came close to midnight, the thirty sixth of 36 awards in the Grosvenor House Hotel ballroom, which I'm sure many of you know and associate with falling asleep while wearing a black tie. I would like particularly to thank Bloomsbury staff worldwide, many of whom will be viewing this streaming for their parts in our getting that award. And my EC colleagues or Executive Committee colleagues all arranged for you to meet some of them for the first time today, you the strength and depth of the Bloomsbury bench and our Board of Directors represented by our Chairman today. So thank you all. Most of all, you for coming to the Bloomsbury breakfast that has an analyst meeting attached as an add on.

Speaker 1

And it's good to see you all, and thank you very much. Now we will have questions and answers. And Penny and I will be the two people answering questions. And Penny is going to be the Chair of this session. And if I'm fortunate, answer all the questions.

Speaker 1

Penny, over to you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Nigel. We'll be taking questions from the room and also from people watching online. So, Al, can we start with you?

Speaker 13

Al Storis from Investec. Sorry, thanks. Yes, three for me. Firstly, in academic publishing, could you expand a little bit more on what you're seeing from a macro perspective in terms of sort of budgetary pressures and whether you see those sort of manifest in terms of lower new customer additions, slightly less demand from existing customers, lower pricing power or any of those factors? Thank you.

Speaker 13

Secondly, obviously, sort of changed some language around sort of AI licensing deals. Can you sort of give us any color in terms of what you sort of think or hope in terms of timing? And is there any way that we can sort of think about the quantum of what that might be? And then lastly, possibly one for Ian, if allowed. For sort of hypothetical potential bestseller, what would be the sort of typical timeframe between in terms of the gap between feeling confident to announce it and it hitting the bookshelves?

Speaker 13

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thank you. So starting with the academic, the macro point, I think we talked a lot about this at the interim where we were seeing The UK pressures in The U. S. And at the time, that was really we're seeing significant pressures on The U. S.

Speaker 2

For the smaller and midsized institutions. I think since then, that's continued. But what we've seen has been very, very widely reported has been some more budgetary pressures on the larger institutions as well. That's very high profile and that's not unique to us. So I think that's, you know, that is tough in those environments.

Speaker 2

I think, you know, The U. S. And The U. K. Are big markets for us and that's why rather than sitting here going, okay, we've got those pressures, we're really looking to where the student numbers are growing and where markets, I think, are being more agile about attracting students about rather than maybe regulatory pressures putting them off.

Speaker 2

So that's a real focus for us. Nigel, do you want to take the point about AI?

Speaker 1

Yes. Well, I think soon is the answer to your AI question. Now is the moment. Now is what when the big AI companies are gearing up and trying to ingest huge amounts of language into their learning models. And if anything, we've deliberately hung back because you've seen deals announced more than a year ago by our larger competitors.

Speaker 1

And I think we've been wise to do so because more people have entered the markets. And on the basis of paying for it. So the great issue for our industry is the wholesale heist, which is going on by some AI companies and just appropriating our authors' content to themselves with no payments. There are good guys out there who are prepared to pay for us and enjoy a lot of benefits from paying for it, such as clear legal title to what they're doing and not making themselves potentially exposed to the kind of lawsuits that are flying around at the moment from people who haven't observed that. As for Quantum, I can't say.

Speaker 1

I can only tell you that we have built up through our more than 30 acquisitions over twenty years of formidable bank of content. And in the AI game, Quantity is the name of that game because they're kind of trying to replicate the whole of human knowledge. So people who have really substantial repository of it as we do in Bloomsbury Academic are of considerable interest to them. So I can say no more. I can refer you to the other deals that have been publicly announced and they are of course in the tens of millions.

Speaker 1

So we'll see, but we're going to do it sensibly.

Speaker 2

And then on your last point, a time frame, I'm going to say and it's absolutely true, it really depends. It depends on the book, it depends on the publicity and all these number of things. So we can't give you I know you'd love a you know, it's six point five months, but it hugely depends on the timing of when we want to do something in the market and what we need to do with the book together. You. Great.

Speaker 2

Will?

Speaker 14

Will Loward from Berenberg. Just a couple from me. Firstly, on the opening of the Asian office. I was just wondering if you could expand a little bit more on that sort of particularly on the size of it, number of people, the investment going into it and how long it typically takes for that to ramp up before it's starting to contribute meaningfully? And then secondly, just in terms of the audio sort of opportunity, obviously, delivered strong growth there.

Speaker 14

So just maybe a little bit of color about how much was backlist versus frontlist and how we should think about that opportunity in the future?

Speaker 2

Yes. So I think the Asia office, so we're what we're doing is we're really building on the experience we already have across different parts of Asia, both in India and Australia. So we're starting quite small. So we'll be building up to five staff there. And what we're doing is really taking the world class global content we have, particularly some of the R and L content, which is very U.

Speaker 2

S. Focused. And then what we're doing is really tailoring it for the market. So both from a what is the content, curating the content, but also how we sell it and who we sell it to. And it's incredibly important.

Speaker 2

The academic market is one, particularly BDR, where we sell directly. So those personal relationships are incredibly important. But I think we have a I mean I think you've seen the scale of our ambition with our BDR target. You know how focused we've been on building up the content to do it. So for us this is really expanding into a market that's higher growth.

Speaker 2

And then with the audio opportunity, I think we talk about our I think we've seen generally our revenue is more backlist weighted. That's part of our resilience and the strengths of our portfolios for that. I think with audio, it very much depends on what titles are coming out, but I think we see that similar breadth across both front list and back list. And I think the audio audio opportunity, you've seen that scale of growth coming through. And the more we learn about it, the better we're getting at it, which titles work well on audio.

Speaker 2

We're seeing anecdotally that podcasts are actually driving people to audiobooks. You get used to really hearing that quite long form, particularly as you know some of the non fiction discursive content. So it's a really exciting market for us. And I think we shared with you at the interim and now again today how exciting it's been for Spotify to come in as strong player, but really opening up and increasing the size of the market has been really interesting. So we're really excited about it.

Speaker 2

It's my excited face. Great, Fiona.

Speaker 15

It's Fiona Rawford Williams from Edison. Your BDR target is still quite ambitious to get to that for 2017. You talked about new subject verticals. Do you just want to talk us a little bit more about how you get to that? I think there's 11% CAGR to do from here to there.

Speaker 15

That's the first one. And the second one, in terms of Asian markets, can you tell us a little bit more about what's going on in India and China and what the potential what's been happening? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. So BDR, absolutely. We've

Speaker 11

used

Speaker 2

the word ambitious and it really is. The reason it's ambitious as opposed to delusional is because what we're seeing is when we brought in the R and L content as we shared with you when we did the acquisition, that has been digitized into the extent of basic e books, but it hadn't had the opportunity. So none of that content was in great databases. So what we're starting to do with our first five thousand three hundred titles in a couple of weeks' time, a couple of weeks, three weeks, time is going to be the first of those products rolling out. So not only are we going to be expanding our existing base, which we will need to push hard on, But also, we are going to be selling those 41,000 titles, creating both collections but also products from those.

Speaker 2

So that's that process there. And Asia, I think, China isn't a particular focus from us from an academic perspective. So I think we've said Singapore and we've focused and our research is very much focused on where we can see the opportunities for us with our content. Yes.

Speaker 1

And India is a powerhouse with rapidly growing student numbers and well funded.

Speaker 2

Steve?

Speaker 16

Hi. Steve Lichte from Deutsche Numis. I'll take two please. Thank you. One is, I mean, on the big author release If we think back to the last Sarah J Maas release, which is February 24, can you just remind us of the time line that, that worked through your system in terms of maybe a raw manuscript being delivered through to and I guess the process through to announcement of the launch and stuff like that?

Speaker 2

And your second question?

Speaker 1

I was

Speaker 16

going let you do that one first. So second one would be just on The U. S. I mean it does feel like the environment has got worse in academic given various personalities over there. Just can you give us any anecdotes or hints in terms of how that's manifested itself for you in terms of selling stuff in The U.

Speaker 16

S. And whether it's affecting contract negotiations, renegotiations, retention or whatever you can give us there really just to help us? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. So coming to your first question then about Sarah J Maas, we don't talk about timelines publicly at all. I think what we've said before, we've said she's announced the next book will be the next in the ACOTAR, The Court of Thorns and Roses. Steve, I know you know the series very well. But that ACOTAR series, and when she announced it to your fans, we will also share that news with you all.

Speaker 2

Coming on to the second point around The U. S, the academic environment, it absolutely has got tougher. That's we've been really clear about that, and I'm sure you're reading about that almost daily. I think we've most seen the budget pressure as opposed to any other types of pressure coming in. And I think that's manifested in the numbers that we've shared with you.

Speaker 2

I think the resilience of BDR means that people do want to buy that when they can. But we saw I think two years ago we were seeing 40% growth. And I think that's really part of that was a huge acceleration. But I think we're just seeing that sort of just that sort of general tightness I think is a fair way of putting it. Is that fair?

Speaker 2

Yes. Jess.

Speaker 17

Jessica Popp from Peel Hunt. I've got two, please. Can you just talk a little bit about whether tariffs has an impact on your supply chain? And then just the second one, can you remind us the last Sarah J. Maas book when the paperback came out, what was the impact of that versus the hardback?

Speaker 17

And do you expect a similar kind of impacts for the new one coming out in June?

Speaker 2

Yes. So tariffs, as we've said, are relatively lucky and that books coming into The U. S. Are exempt from tariffs. But the small thing if they're coming directly in from China.

Speaker 2

But otherwise, we're a much better position than so many people, and we're really grateful for that. We've also built up a very agile supply chain over one of the many things we've learned over the last five years, Nigel, hasn't it, been we have to really and in fact our Production Director, Stephen, is in The U. S. At the moment, busy making sure that we can print and distribute entirely in The U. S.

Speaker 2

So that we aren't we can minimize the impact of a supply chain. We use the same containers, the same ships as everyone else. It doesn't matter if you're motorbikes or Christmas decorations or books. So we work very hard to do that. But as we've talked about in the outlook, we're very cognizant of punchy macroeconomic factors, which are, as you're all very, very well aware, really punchy.

Speaker 2

I think coming back to your point about hardbacks and the paperback, so the paperback of our most recent title with her was the House of Flame and Shadow, which came out in at the January '24. And we that did so well that we've actually pushed out the date of the paperback to June this year. Normally, we would do it a year. And I think we see with any publication, we see a great uplift in great marketing and publicity opportunity to remind people and people hear about it and go, let's come to the backlist. But Nigel, do you want to talk more about that?

Speaker 1

Well, the paperback after these huge hardcover launches, the paperback becomes the vehicle for the sales long into the future. And bearing in mind that the first books in A Court of Thorn and Roses, which is just one of her three series, is over ten years old. It is the paperbacks that are doing the heavy lifting in the book shops. And just to remind you that based on the Arcana points of sale data, Sergey Mas was the biggest selling author in the English language in the world last year, leading by miles in America. And that isn't really based on one title.

Speaker 1

It's based on the aggregate of 16 different titles. And that's where we're so fortunate because the readers become hooked on one series and then in many cases, we'll go and read through the other series as well. So it's all about the paperback in the long run.

Speaker 18

Ian Daly from H2 Radnor. Looking out to the current financial year, if we look at consumer, would you characterize it being a year where you're going to double down on the existing genre successes that you already have? Or do you see potential for new genres to come into play for the current year?

Speaker 2

No, absolutely. And I think what Iain and Kathleen talked about was the breadth of what we're doing, not only across formats. So we see audio expanding into we started sort of certain genres work better in audio to start with, but we're seeing that really expanding. But no, we've absolutely talked about the range and breadth in our portfolio within consumer. We've absolutely continued to expand it.

Speaker 2

So more commercial publishing, you saw one of our amazing authors this morning, and hopefully, you all had some of his amazing pastries. But no, absolutely, I think it's a sort of combination of being that expanding the portfolio, but remaining very focused on what we can do well as opposed to a sort of scattergun approach. So no, absolutely more fantasy, more, more, more.

Speaker 1

And Iain, have a go to Yes. Sorry. Iain, is it September we're launching the Bloomsbury Archer list? In October. Samantha

Speaker 4

Shannon.

Speaker 1

Samantha Shannon. So this is a big initiative for us in the fantasy area in which Bloomsbury can set to have been pioneers of a sort. So we're doubling down on our success there. To mention a kind of subgenre, we've been a very strong publisher in crime fiction through The Raven List, but we added another editor there who's focusing on different kind of crime novel, moving from I'm not sure how we would characterize it, hard psychological crime to cozy crime. And we've had a stunning success with an early book in that new venture called A Case of Mison Murder by the K.

Speaker 1

C. Sally Smith writing about the enclosed world of the temple, which is like the Vatican City. It has its own laws, its own police forces, starting with the murder of the Lord Chief Justice on the steps of his own chambers in Page one in 1904. And so the paperback of that book, which came out in hardcover in July, came out last month and was chosen as Waterstones thriller of the month. So that's the kind of oxygen we need in growing a new list.

Speaker 1

And the second book in the series, the second hardcover will come out in July. So we're very active in backing the successes within some of the genres and areas that we're in, not least in cookery as you saw in meeting Matthew Royal. You.

Speaker 2

Okay. Any last questions?

Speaker 1

Over here.

Speaker 2

Oh, yes. Hi, Caroline.

Speaker 19

Thank you. Actually, I might like a comment and a question. I think it's great to have the whole senior leadership here and even more so because it's majority of women there, which obviously is very pleasing. Sorry, Japs. I had a question on Eshet, the distribution of video earlier.

Speaker 19

I'm

Speaker 1

not

Speaker 19

actually exactly sure how you manage your distribution before. So it be helpful to you if you could expand on that and explain what Eshet brings you. Is it faster route to market? Is it cost efficiencies? Also if can expand a bit more on the benefits,

Speaker 1

Well, it's an interesting story. We've been very well served for, I think more than twenty years by Macmillan Distribution who are based in Swansea and Basingstoke. And we fully expected to be renewing that contract, but we did the benchmarking that you do at the end of any contract term. And that forced some members of the team you see sitting to the left and right of me to go to Didcot and see this completely state of the art warehouse. I think it's the tallest warehouse

Speaker 1

It's built on the site of one of those old cooling towers that you may remember from going through Ditko Station. So it's by far the most modern facility in book distribution anywhere. And more significantly, it's not only the hardware of all those wonderful lifts and so on, which I was terrified to go up in myself, but their software is completely brilliant. And that which we were relying on with our third party distributor previously was really sunsetting. And so we're very lucky to so why have we done this?

Speaker 1

A, the pricing is keen, but B, we genuinely believe in the long run we will sell more books due to the efficiencies that they bring to us. But it was a massive enterprise, this move. Had was it 10,000,000 books out on the M4 running Swansea and Ditkiss. Fortunately, they turned left where they should have and the books arrived at their destination. But I've never seen, knock on wood, a distribution.

Speaker 1

It's the largest publishing move in history go of English language books go so smoothly. So fingers crossed, but we're very excited to be there. I'm not sure if the video showed this, but we had a bagpiper pipe in the first book followed by a procession of three fifty of their warehouse workers, each carrying a different book. Was quite memorable.

Speaker 2

Cheeky last question. This

Speaker 1

is the Colombo. Sorry,

Speaker 13

just to follow We obviously touched on some of the sort of budgetary macro pressures on academic publishing, I guess, particularly in The U. S. And The U. K. Has that changed your acquisition appetite at all, particularly in The U.

Speaker 13

S? And how is your sort of acquisition pipeline generally?

Speaker 2

So our acquisition appetite remains absolutely undimmed. I mean, think I shared we've shared with you before that within twenty four hours of completing Roman and Littlefield, our Head of M and A at e mail, Nigel and I, the list of his next 10 targets. Like, surely everyone just needs some sleep. So absolutely remains undimmed. We're very mindful of we've got the £24,000,000 loan that want to pay off.

Speaker 2

So we're balancing that. But we're very actively pursuing opportunities. I think we've talked about our confidence in the academic market and so on. And the Roman Littlefield, we're really pleased with that acquisition, both the strength of the content, the talent that we brought in, how well the integration has gone and is going. So I think that gives us even more confidence for the future.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you all very much for coming. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much, everyone.

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Key Takeaways

  • Revenue of £361M (up 5%) and profit of £42.1M (12% margin) drove net cash to £17M and supported a 5% increase in the final dividend.
  • Integration of the Roman & Littlefield acquisition is progressing well, and the business is targeting £41M in BDR revenues by FY27/28 after 2% growth in the year.
  • Organic academic publishing revenue fell by 10% due to budget pressures in the UK and US, highlighting challenges in key institutional markets.
  • Audio revenues surged 57% year-on-year, fueled by a strengthened backlist, high-profile narrators, and a Spotify catalog launch.
  • Bloomsbury plans to open a new office in Singapore to tap Asia’s student growth and is in early AI licensing negotiations to monetize academic content.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Bloomsbury Publishing H2 2025
00:00 / 00:00