Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY) reported higher profit and earnings despite a year-over-year revenue decline, as management pointed to the resilience of its mix of consumer and academic publishing and said it expects to deliver record profit in the current financial year.
Founder and Chief Executive Nigel Newton said Bloomsbury’s “portfolio of portfolios” across consumer and academic publishing has helped insulate the company from reliance on a single revenue stream. He said the model gives the publisher exposure both to consumer book buyers and to “the huge institutional buying power” of academic libraries worldwide.
Profit Rises as Academic Digital Sales Drive Growth
Underwood said Bloomsbury’s profit margin rose to 13.8%, up 210 basis points from 11.7% a year earlier. Total revenue declined year over year, which management attributed to a strong prior-year comparison in the consumer division.
The company ended the period with total net assets broadly flat at £216 million. Underwood said Bloomsbury reduced finished stock balances by more than 20% to £35 million and improved its net cash position to £29 million, comprising £44 million of cash and £15 million of debt. He said the cash balance is expected to draw down in the first half and rebuild in the second half, reflecting the weighting of the consumer publishing list.
Underwood said Bloomsbury’s capital allocation priorities remain internal investment to drive organic growth, debt reduction, dividends and, where appropriate, bolt-on acquisitions. He cited the £65 million acquisition of Rowman & Littlefield in May 2024 as the company’s most recent deal and said its integration is “substantially complete.”
Consumer Division Faces Tough Comparison
Bloomsbury’s consumer division reported revenue of £218 million and profit of £20.5 million, with a 9% margin. Underwood said the division was up against “an extremely strong comparative” from the prior year.
Management highlighted a broad front list and backlist across genres, including fantasy, children’s books, nonfiction and cookery. Underwood said Sarah J. Maas returned to bestseller lists with the paperback release of The House of Flame and Shadow, and Newton said two new books in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series are expected in the year ahead.
Other authors and titles cited included J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Gillian Anderson’s Want, Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures, Samantha Shannon and Poppy O’Toole. Newton also said Bloomsbury will publish Letters to Our Sons, compiled by actor Stephen Graham.
In response to an analyst question, Newton said pre-orders for the new Sarah J. Maas titles are “extraordinary,” particularly in the U.S., which he described as her largest market. He said retailer support across major outlets and non-book channels is stronger than he has seen before for the two books.
Academic and Professional Profit Doubles
The Academic and Professional division reported revenue of £108 million and profit of £25 million, with profit doubling from the prior year. Underwood said the growth was driven by digital sales, including an AI licensing agreement announced earlier in the year. Print revenue was stable, and all revenue streams — print, digital and other — increased in the second half.
Underwood said the company has seen “really good growth in all territories” in the financial year to date. He also said Bloomsbury has opened a base in Singapore to capitalize on growth in student populations in Asia, building on existing operations in Australia and India.
During the question-and-answer session, Underwood said academic and professional growth has continued into the opening part of the year, with gains from existing customers and new customers. He cautioned that it is still early in the financial year.
AI Licensing and Technology Investments in Focus
Newton said an AI licensing agreement announced in July is ongoing into financial 2026-2027 as more authors opt in and more titles are added. Asked to quantify author participation, Newton said Bloomsbury had not identified a number but described the process of contacting academic authors as productive.
Newton said the company is in contact with major large language model providers but is dealing only with “good faith actors.” He said Bloomsbury is not currently seeking to license consumer content in the same way, adding that academic content is particularly valuable because of peer review.
Newton also discussed a separate partnership with Google announced in December, under which Bloomsbury is implementing tools across its workforce. He said the company is developing what it calls the “Bloomsbury Brain,” a secure internal database intended to analyze the company’s published content and support decisions about publishing, pricing, print runs and other areas.
Underwood said he sees high-value use cases for technology deployment, including semantic search, internal promotional opportunities, sales demand forecasting, cost management, stock management and print runs.
Restructuring and Outlook
Bloomsbury has moved from a matrix operating structure to a vertical structure, which Newton said should improve financial performance. He said the company has also changed its U.S. sales approach, moving from selling through Macmillan Publishing Services to building its own key account management team to sell directly to major customers.
The board has been strengthened with Underwood’s appointment, the appointment of Jenny Ridout, managing director of Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, and the addition of Chris Blatchford as a non-executive director. Newton cited Blatchford’s technology expertise, including prior experience at Elsevier within RELX and his current role at Kingfisher.
Newton said the board has “strong confidence” in delivering record profit in financial 2026-2027, in line with recently upgraded expectations. Management cited the upcoming Sarah J. Maas releases, activity around the Harry Potter franchise and additional television and film-related opportunities as factors supporting the outlook.
About Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY)
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 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.
