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In a year-end trading update for the 12 months to 28th February 2023, Bloomsbury said it expected revenue to be “comfortably ahead” and profit “materially ahead” of expectations, hitting £260m and £30m respectively.
The figures would represent a jump on last year’s record results, where profits before taxation and highlighted items soared 40% to £26.7m, and revenue up 24% to £230m.
Bloomsbury said it had been driven by strong trading at the end of the year. In the consumer division this was driven by both frontlist and core backlist titles. Bloomsbury highlighted the success of Samantha Shannon’s new novel, A Day of Fallen Night, Johan Hari’s Stolen Focus and BAKE by Paul Hollywood as well as evergreen Sarah J Maas, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and Dishoom: From Bombay with Love by Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir.
Nigel Newton, c.e.o, said: “Bloomsbury’s unique position in combining consumer and academic publishing combined with our investment in high-quality content and company acquisitions has enabled us to achieve excellent trading for the year. We have seen strong demand for our titles — in print, e-book and audio — and continued digital growth. Two of our strongest performances in the year have come from very disparate ends of our publishing strategy — fantasy novels on the one hand and academic digital resources on the other — showing how well our balanced consumer and academic portfolio is working in practice.
“Throughout a year which has been characterised by rising inflation and cost-of-living pressure, it is notable that reading remains hugely popular throughout the world with books regarded by many readers as an affordable pastime.”
The company also singled out strong growth in Bloomsbury Digital Resources through its acquisition of ABC-CLIO and “continued organic growth”. The publisher said: “ABC-CLIO brought to Bloomsbury a portfolio of digital academic resources, with a major presence in the US high school library market, and opportunities for accessing wider, international markets with their products. We are encouraged by the pipeline of further cross-selling and growth opportunities from ABC-CLIO. We have launched a new platform for our academic streaming content, Bloomsbury Video Library, with more than 2,000 films spanning a vast range of subjects.”