RELX PLC (LON:REL) maintained its interim dividend despite sales and profits falling as its exhibitions business and print publishing were badly hit by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Exhibitions, which accounted for 16% of revenue and 13% of adjusted operating profit for the media group last year, saw first-half revenue in 2020 fall 71% to £201mln, which led to a swing to an underlying loss of £117mln from a £231mln profit last year.
The outlook for the remainder of 2020 for this business area, where events include London Book Fair and MCM Comic Con, “remains highly uncertain”, the FTSE 100 company said.
But RELX said its interim dividend of 13.6p was unchanged because of the resilience of its three largest business areas in publishing information and analytics: STM (Scientific, Technical & Medical), Risk & Business Analytics and Legal, where combined first half revenue was up 3% to £3.3bn and adjusted operating profit up 5% to £1.1bn
Electronic revenue, which accounted for 92% of the first-half total for these three, grew 3-4% on an underlying basis, but print revenue saw steeper than historical declines of 17-19%.
Overall, with seven acquisitions completed for £720mln during the half, group revenues fell 10% to £3.5bn, while reported net profit plunged 30% to £548mln.
Group cash flow was said to be strong, in line with recent years, while the group bolstered its balance sheet with bond issues of €2bn and US$750mln, meaning net debt rose to £7.5bn by the end of June from £6.6bn a year ago.