Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (LSE:BMY) proposed a 24% increase in its dividend and reported record annual revenues and profits, saying "reading has become a reacquired habit and continues to thrive".
The Publisher of Harry Potter added the strong sales have continued in the first quarter of the new year as the surge in reading seen during the pandemic appears to be "permanent'.
The fiction, non-fiction and academic publisher generated revenues of £230.1mln in the year to 28 February 2022, up 24% on the prior year and 41% on the one before.
Organic revenue was £212.7mln, up 15% year on year. The remainder came from the three acquisitions during the year - academic and digital publisher ABC-CLIO, academic imprint Red Globe Press and fiction publisher Head of Zeus.
Adjusted profits before tax jumped 40% to £26.7mln, up 70% from two years ago. Reported PBT was up 28% year on year to £22.2mln.
The Consumer division grew revenue and profit 25% to £148.2mln and £17.8mln respectively, while Non-Consumer revenues rose 23% to £81.9mln and profit 68% to £9.1mln.
These performances, said chief executive Nigel Newton, highlighted Bloomsbury's “unique strength in combining general and academic publishing”.
He said the question on all minds in the publishing industry was: “would the pandemic surge in reading continue? We now know the answer: reading has become a reacquired habit and continues to thrive. The pandemic made us all re-evaluate how we spend our time and this has resulted in an increase in sales of books that enable us to explore our hobbies and personal interests such as cooking, fitness, history and reading novels for enlightenment and escape.”
Meanwhile, he said, academic sales have benefitted from the structural shift to online learning.
“Our success continues to this date with good sales for Bloomsbury's first quarter. The surge in reading, which seemed to be one of the only rays of light in the darkest days of the pandemic is perhaps now being revealed as permanent.”
Another flourish for the company was beating the target for Bloomsbury Digital Resources (BDR) of £15mln revenue and £5mln of profits set six years ago, with the past year seeing a contribution of £18.6mln sales (up 50%) and £6.8mln profit (up 134%).
Following this success, Newston said “ambitious new growth targets” have been set for BDR, namely to achieve a further 50% organic growth and 30% margin over the five years from 2022/23.
With £41.2mln cash in the bank at year-end, an increase in the final dividend to 9.4p per share was proposed from 7.58p a year ago.