Bloomsbury Publishing H1 2027 Earnings Results & Report

Bloomsbury Publishing EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 16.82
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Bloomsbury Publishing Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY) publishes academic, educational, and general fiction and non-fiction books for children, teachers, students, researchers, and professionals worldwide. The company offers books and digital resources to international research community and higher education students; online law, accounting, and tax services for the United Kingdom and professionals; and publishing services for corporations and institutions. It serves communities of interest in sports and sports science, nautical, military history, natural history, arts and crafts, and popular science; and offers books for students of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In addition, the company provides digital resources and databases for school libraries and professionals, as well as educational content for primary and secondary schools; and professional development content for trainee teachers and teachers. Further, it publishes non-fiction list, such as cookery, sport, crime, natural history, health, and well-being books. Additionally, the company publishes fiction lists for adults; and titles in print, e-book and audio book formats for both adult and children. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc was incorporated in 1986 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

Bloomsbury Publishing H1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Management reaffirmed confidence in delivering record profit for FY 2026/27, supported by a strong second half, robust Consumer releases and normalized Academic & Professional performance.
• Positive Sentiment: The Consumer division is expected to accelerate in the second half, driven by two Sarah J. Maas novels, strong retailer marketing, and renewed Harry Potter demand ahead of the HBO series; management also reported encouraging recent sales and backlist momentum.
• Positive Sentiment: Academic & Professional revenue grew 6% organically to £48.8 million, with growth across territories and formats, while expansion in Asia—including a Singapore hub and new digital resources—offers additional growth potential.
• Positive Sentiment: Net cash improved to £22.8 million from £2.4 million a year earlier as working-capital initiatives reduced inventory; the company raised its dividend 5% and is considering bolt-on acquisitions, while separately expecting a double-digit-million-pound Anthropic settlement not included in consensus forecasts.

Presentation

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Good morning and welcome to all analysts here in this room and to shareholders and potential shareholders watching the webcast, and we welcome all of you. I am Nigel Newton, I am Executive Chairman, and I am joined by Keith Underwood, Chief Financial and Operating Officer of Bloomsbury Publishing. Have we got the next slide up? Yes. Excellent. Our strategy of diversification has created a portfolio of portfolios, much as you all do in your own portfolios of companies you invest in, balancing the vicissitudes of one area of publishing against the other.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

We have created a resilient model for long-term success, and we are pleased to report revenue of GBP 151.6 million, an adjusted profit of GBP 16.8 million, with a margin of 11.1%, and the dividend up 5%. We have a strong consumer frontlist of new titles this year, with growth heavily weighted to the second half. We are very excited and fortunate to have two new Sarah J. Maas novels, the first of which is being launched next week, and the second in January. The Academic and Professional division has seen good underlying growth in all territories, in both print and digital formats, excluding AI income.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

We are confident in delivering record profit in line with profit expectations for our financial year 2026/2027. We have a strong balance sheet with net cash of GBP 22.8 million, which brings capital allocation to the fore. The dividend slide, always my favorite. As the chart shows, Bloomsbury has delivered 31 years of consistent dividend growth since flotation in 1994. In the first half of 2026-2027, this continues with a 5% dividend increase, which reflects both the achievements of the financial year and our confidence that the company is well-positioned for further growth.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Let us recap on the investment case. For Bloomsbury, this is one of really strong shareholder returns, derived from a diversified portfolio across academic and consumer publishing, across print and digital formats, and from an increasingly international audience. As Nigel mentioned earlier, this diversification has created a more resilient model for long-term success. Last year, in FY 2026, the Academic and Professional division had strong profits doubling to GBP 25 million, which mitigated lower profits in the Consumer division.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

This year, with Academic and Professional returning to a more normalized run rate, we are set to deliver record results driven by an exceptional performance in the Consumer division. That is the portfolio of portfolios in action. In terms of the financial highlights for the first half of this year, revenue GBP 151.6 million, an adjusted profit of GBP 16.8 million, with a margin of 11.1%, taking EPS to GBP 0.1667. Our net cash position is really strong at GBP 22.8 million, and the dividend is up 5%, continuing that fantastic track record of unbroken dividend growth.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

If we just look at the divisional analysis now. As expected, revenue and profit from the Consumer division is slightly lighter in the first half of the year, but the Consumer division is expected to really drive forward in the second half in a year that is very second-half weighted, as we have always said. Sales in October and September were really encouraging and very strong. The Academic and Professional division delivered really good growth of 6% on an underlying basis. That is excluding AI within the numbers as well, delivered growth in all territories and in all formats.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

You can see their print sales, for example, increasing by over 30%, showing strong demand for what is a really resilient format. The intellectual property value and quality of our academic list has enabled us to continue our non-exclusive AI licensing agreement into this financial year. Although, as we have always said, it is to a lesser quantum this year, leading to a reduced margin.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Consumer bestsellers. In Romantasy, Sarah J. Maas is launching not one, but two novels in the most popular of her three series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, known as ACOTAR. The first is A Court of Splintered Harmony next week, and then A Court of Forgotten Melody in January. In addition, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is already benefiting from the new Harry Potter TV streaming series, starting on Christmas Day itself, no less, on HBO Max.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

I predict a takeover of all families to be gathered around the television, and certainly look to each of you in this room and on this webcast to be part of what is going to be a really great moment as a new generation of readers is brought to Harry Potter. The second half is a wonder. So far in it, we have seen Gillian Anderson's successor volume to her Want called More in the bestseller list in September, and Stephen Graham was an instant bestseller with Letters to Our Sons.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Moving on to the Academic and Professional division. It has had a very good start to the first half of this year. Revenue growth of around 6% to GBP 48.8 million, and profits of GBP 6.8 million. As I said, good underlying growth in all territories and in all formats, excluding AI. More specifically, we have expanded, as I mentioned before, our business in Asia by opening up a Singapore office as a hub to further capitalize on the projected growth in student numbers in that region.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

The team in this area is now really developing new propositions. We have got a new Asia studies digital resource to bolster the BDR platform. We are establishing key relationships with new institutions, and following a range of successful meetings at the Beijing International Book Fair, we are advancing publishing partnerships with several major publishing houses in China. Moving to the balance sheet.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

As you can see, it remains very strong. Total net assets for the year up at GBP 213 million. Within working capital, we have actively managed down our finished stock balances year-on-year, then continuing to drive operational efficiency. Our net cash position, as you can see, has improved from GBP 2.4 million last year to GBP 22.8 million this year, driven by the profit drop through, but also working capital improvements, which I referenced. Consistent with the prior years, this cash balance decreases in Q3, before increasing again in Q4 ahead of the royalty run in March.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Just taking that cash bridge, this just shows the movement from the end of last financial year through to the six months to the end of August. Closing net cash balance of GBP 22.8 million, as we have said before, capital allocation priorities remain focused on internal growth initiatives to drive organic growth, debt reduction, which you can see we already did in the first half of this year, also bolt-on acquisitions to deliver against our future growth strategies.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Summary and outlook. The Bloomsbury portfolio of portfolios, as you have seen, has created a resilient and successful model. We have entered the second half with a strong net cash position and have had an outstanding start underpinning our confidence. We have a strong publishing list for the year ahead, with exciting releases in major franchises such as Harry Potter and Sarah J. Maas. As such, the board has confidence in delivering record profit in this financial year, FY 2026-2027, in line with expectations. Now, we would like to invite a question. Alistair?

[Analyst]

Thank you. Three, naturally. Thanks so much. Three questions, please. Firstly, you noted some sales processes beginning in the area of special interest. Just give us a bit of color on whether there are more of those to come and the kind of broader aspirations for the improving contribution to profits as a result. Secondly, just give us an update on your M&A pipeline, key areas of focus, levels of activity in the pipeline. Then lastly, can you just talk a little bit more about the underlying trends you are seeing in the market for Academic and Professional in terms of customer budgets on a like-to-like basis, customer numbers, new subject areas, and the like? That would be great. Thank you.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Customer budgets.

[Analyst]

Customer numbers.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Numbers. And there was a third thing? No. Okay. Well, Keith, perhaps you could take the special interest and M&A question, and I'll take the underlying trends.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Yeah. So look, as we announced last time around, we talked about the vertical structure, which gives people great deal of control and visibility over their bottom lines. Kathleen Farrar, who's running our Consumer division in the U.K., has special interest now under that division. We are looking at all ways in which we can drive margin up in the consumer area as well, and that includes looking at all divisions to make sure they're operating as effectively as we can.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

You would see that we've previously announced sale processes for Who's Who within that area, and also the Games division. Those are progressing at the moment. And we will continue to look at areas within the Consumer division as well in order to drive margin within that particular area of the business.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

And, M&A?

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

M&A pipeline. Look, given the cash balances that we have got, we have laid out our capital allocation priorities. M&A is a part of that. We continue to actively look at bolt-on opportunities that can continue to drive top-line growth and margin growth consistent with the way that Bloomsbury has done it before. Got a very good history as a business of being able to spot good opportunities and integrate them in a way that drives synergies across the operating business. We are actively looking at opportunities at the moment, and we will be able to say more about that in due course.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Underlying trends in academic. Underlying growth is good in our Academic division in all territories, and I think what we have seen is perhaps a recovery from some of the knocks taken by political interference, if you like, in the normal running of the academic marketplace, particularly in the U.S. and the U.K. So I think there has been recovery there, and we remain confident in the budgets, and the numbers is another story. They are really going off the Richter scale in terms of growth in Asia in particular, and that is of course why we have started this base in Singapore in January, which is off to a terrific start. So we believe we have adopted the right strategy there, and we will see how we get on. Hi?

[Will Larwood, Analyst at Berenberg]

Thanks. Will Larwood from Berenberg. Three from me, please. Firstly, just in terms of the Harry Potter HBO series, I was just wondering if you could share any color in terms of orders from supermarkets, pre-orders, just general feeling around that ahead of the HBO release. Secondly, in terms of some benefit from AI licensing deals in H1 and expected to continue into H2, what about your conversations with other frontier models? How are those progressing? Then finally, just in terms of the Anthropic settlement, can you provide if there has been any change to your expectations for that?

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Thanks very much, Will. I will take HBO and, Keith, AI and Anthropic kindly. The pre-orders are good. The challenge for us has been to get the series back into the supermarkets who backed Harry Potter so strongly when the original Warner Brothers films started coming out around 2000. We have succeeded. The pump is primed. We have significant orders in the U.K. from the major supermarkets. We have doubled down on that by seeking marketing from them to go with it, and I reviewed a list of the individual supermarkets' plans.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Some are planning tannoy messages to drive people to the Harry Potter section. What is exciting about this release versus the films 27 years ago is it is the first time we have done a tie-in jacket. Possibly we showed on the screen earlier, but we have a very cool jacket image of Harry wearing his Quidditch coat shot from behind, and it says, "Harry Potter," and it is very powerful. I think they are going to fly off the shelves to a new generation of readers. There are something like 700,000 new eight year-olds in Britain every year, and it is a long time since the books came out. I think that one of the joys of television is driving people to certain books.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Of course, they will not just read this book. The experience of the film release was that they would read the one and then the next and the next, and we saw them cascade through the bestseller list because they were already backlist titles by then. It does feel as though HBO will take over Christmas Day itself, and so we will watch this space. I have just answered your question in respect of the U.K. If you imagine our international sales team, who were very active at the Frankfurt Book Fair two years ago, replicating that performance in pretty much every major market in the world.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

To remind you, we do have the English language rights in Harry Potter in every country in the world except the United States. We have Canada, and the traditional Commonwealth countries will make up a big chunk of the market, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada. The many other countries where reading a 500-page novel in a foreign language like English is not a terrifying prospect to eight year-olds, we will also succeed. Of course, unlike when the first ones came out, these are available in translation now as well, which will mitigate the market. I think it is going to be very big. AI?

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Shall I take the AI? Well, look, as we said, the quality of our academic list is such that we were able to take the original value that we got in FY 2026 and see that roll forward into FY 2027, which is great. That value is included, obviously, in the first half numbers that we've just announced, and we're expecting further value to come through in the second half of the year, and also to continue from that partnership into FY 2028 as well. We've always said that that would be at a lower quantum than we were able to generate in FY 2026. That's still our expectation.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

What we're also now starting to have is conversations with other parties as well, particularly in the specialist cases as well that you've got within the Academic and Professional arena, both in terms of training deals, which was our first deal that we did, but also increasingly in respect of specialist RAG deals that we're looking to strike as well. So, that's encouraging. You asked about the Anthropic settlement. We are working through at the moment the disputes process with the settlement administrator. That is a relatively lengthy process. We're working through it at the moment. I'm not going to prejudge the outcome of the settlement process, but we still expect to receive double-digit million settlement as a result of that.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Hi.

[Melanie Yang, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Hi. Hello. Melanie from Peel Hunt. I've got two, please. First one is, can you talk about how you're thinking about the level of marketing for Sarah J. Maas releases upcoming in the second half? The second one is, Asia for academic has been going really well. So now it's proven the concept. Do you plan to invest harder in that region? Thank you.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

I might help myself to both of those. The level of marketing for Sarah J. Maas is, as you would imagine, very high, and it's not just us, it's the retailers themselves. If you're a retailer, you're searching for this year's big product, and many of them have concluded it's going to be Sarah J. Maas. So there are huge internal promotions happening. To give you an example, Target were planning to create a kind of Sarah J. Maas boutique within their shops in the U.S.A., of which there are many, with the new book, A Court of Splintered Harmony as the hook and the centerpiece, but with a range of other merchandise relating to that universe.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

In other places, more traditional forms of marketing, such as pallet sales, where they just slap down a huge pallet at the end of an aisle and the books are there. That seems to induce increased buying. There is all manner. Some shops have produced special things they will give away of their own initiation and funding if you buy the new book from them instead of their competitor next door. There are two kinds of marketing happening. Our own marketing, which is considerable and very social media-oriented, then there is the marketing of almost every major retailer on Earth.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

This may well turn out to be the biggest-selling book of the year. Certainly, that was the case with Sarah's previous launch. We will see. Asia, yes, it is early days. We do not want to overcook this. Our plans are ambitious, but our execution is only about nine months old at this stage. As we mentioned earlier, we are creating an Asia studies Academic Digital Resource within BDR. We have an assiduous editorial team finding very interesting material that has not been digitized by anyone else for such a product.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

I think, knowing what I know, I think that will turn what we are creating into a must-have product for most universities in the world and not just a nice-to-have product. We have our eye, of course, on China, which is such a huge academic market now, and we have various plans in the pipeline. Hello, Alex.

[Alex Pollen, Analyst at Berenberg]

Good morning. Hi, Alex Pollen from Berenberg. One is on cash, Keith, if that is all right. Just to reiterate that any settlement from Anthropic, as far as you are concerned, is not included in any consensus forecasts at the moment.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Correct.

[Alex Pollen, Analyst at Berenberg]

Any anecdotal examples around the working capital improvements as well, please? Any more detail you can give around whether that is something that changes you have put in place since you have come in, etc, that have led to that sort of improvement. Then on capital allocation, whether the high levels of cash or likely high levels of expected cash are changing, any thoughts around that at all? Then totally unrelated, one on audio and just a general update on how you are seeing the audio market.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Well, I'm glad he was looking at you when he asked most of those questions, Keith.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Let me just address then in that case. Yes, for the consensus cash forecast, Anthropic settlement is not built into those numbers. In terms of the working capital improvements we got, these are just a series of improvements that are being made. We call out, and one of the things I would probably call out specifically is just in relation to stock, finished stock. You will have seen that that is down considerably in terms of year-on-year. We've obviously got a slight buildup in the half year as we're stocking to sell some major titles.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

But if you look at it half year to half year, very significantly down due to a series of improvements that we've put in place around print run order management, disciplines in terms of sign-off and that, and also starting to use AI in terms of predicting print runs and trying to drive intelligence through the use of that type of technology.

[Keith Underwood, CFO and COO at Bloomsbury Publishing]

It's a series of improvements that the team are working on across the board, and I think they are starting to yield real results, and you can see that from some of the cash drop-through that we've got in terms of the operating profits that we've delivered. I am pleased with that. There is more to be done, and we're continuing to look at the efficiency with which we can drive cash drop-through, but it's an encouraging start, I would suggest. Audio?

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Audio. What a wonderfully growing market that is, as you know, with the addition of Spotify, with their mighty membership worldwide in the audiobook area in November a year ago. We've seen huge growth coming just from that quarter alone. But there are quite a handful of other customers buying audio editions from us, Apple among them. We see nothing but growth coming from that market. Are there any other questions? Don't be shy.

[Melanie Yang, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

I have another one.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Go for it.

[Melanie Yang, Analyst at Peel Hunt]

Thank you. I just want to ask, are you seeing any boost in Sarah J. Maas' backlist selling in the past few months ahead of the upcoming release?

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Yeah, absolutely. I think we've seen one of the books go back into The New York Times. Tamsin's nodding encouragingly. In the number 10 position in The New York Times bestseller list right now this week, and that is, of course, a reflection of the beating of the drum in people's anticipation of it. Then one thing, of course, that happens with a book like this is you're having to control an embargo worldwide so that retailers aren't putting the book out early for sale as they begin to arrive in the distribution system, and that creates a lot of excitement, mainly of the negative variety, but it's still excitement and anticipation.

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

Yes, of course, there will be many readers who are not up to speed with the ACOTAR series, and this is the moment that will push them over the top into becoming readers and reading their way through the series. Sarah had 16 novels under the belt, and now there is about to be 18, so it is wonderful because often literary phenomena are restricted to one, two, three, four backlist books. To have 18 as we will do is very exciting. Alistair is feeling encouraged.

[Analyst]

Let us keep going about Sarah. Hard obviously to speak on her behalf, but what do you think her appetite is to keep being an author, keep writing the new novels? I mean, all this excitement is coming. Is she signing a movie deal anytime soon?

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

You are absolutely right that no publisher ever speaks on behalf of their author, and their IP is their business, but she has certainly shown great appetite in producing not one, but two books in a row. So I will leave that fact for you as the measure of it all. I do not think since the days of Charles Dickens and novels being serialized in magazines have I ever seen two installments of a story come out so quickly, and we are very fortunate for that. As for the rest, you will have to watch this space and gaze into your crystal ball.

[Analyst]

Movies?

[Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman at Bloomsbury Publishing]

The same. There have been no new announcements at all, so I have no information to impart other than that one day these novels will make the most stunning films that will absolutely clear up. We need excitement for the future. We cannot be having everything all at once. Okay. Well, thank you all very much indeed for coming and for hearing the story of our, we believe, our record year to the end of February. But we still have to deliver a lot of that, so watch this space.

[Analyst]

Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• Nigel Newton, Executive Chairman
• Keith Underwood, CFO and COO

Analysts

• Analyst
• Will Larwood, Analyst at Berenberg
• Melanie Yang, Analyst at Peel Hunt
• Alex Pollen, Analyst at Berenberg