Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Great, thank you. All right, so I won't repeat that. So welcome to everybody. Welcome to particularly the analysts and the brokers here in the room, and then also to our shareholders. This is the first time we're webcasting this presentation. which is very welcome. So we know that there will be many more shareholders and potential shareholders. And then also, as importantly, we've got all of our colleagues at Bloomsbury will be joining us by webcast. So that's a very good movement forward. Now, this morning, you can see that there's a very large line-up of people in front of you, so maybe I might explain what that's about. So, you're obviously very used to Nigel Newton, who's founder and chief executive, Penny Scott-Bayfield, who's finance director, to really lead the presentation and to do the Q&As. They've been ably supported just over the last year or so by Times and Garrity. But you've obviously got a number of other people here in front of you. You've actually got the executive committee of Bloomsbury. And I think it really was a reflection of the development of Bloomsbury really quite quickly over a number of years, and not least the year that we're looking at, that i think giving you the visibility of the team that runs bloomsbury we thought was a very good idea um i hope you agree with that as well so uh they are going to uh be each presenting and we'll try and keep to time this morning they each are going to represent in their individual areas And then we should have time for Q&A at the end. And, of course, what we'll do is, I think, to try and just keep it in an orderly fashion, we'll, if you could, maybe give your questions to Penny, and then I think Penny and Nigel will respond to most of those questions. So... I think we've got a great set of results to present to you and a number of developments that have either landed or will land in this current financial year. So to talk more about that, I'll hand over to Nigel. Thank you.

Well, good morning everyone and a warm welcome again and great thanks to John. We were very fortunate at our AGM in July when John Basin became chairman of Bloomsbury in succession to Sir Richard Lambert and we are powering ahead under his leadership. So today we're going to talk to you about our strategy of diversification, which has created a portfolio of portfolios, much as all of you who are fund managers do in your own portfolios. balancing the vicissitudes of one area off against another. So we believe we have created a long-term resilient model for success in our combination of our unusual combination of academic and general publishing. Results are strong and the year is broadly in line with expectations in constant currency. One of our major announcements is the opening of a new office in Singapore to capitalize on the large growth in student numbers, which is projected to occur in Asia quite significantly by 2030 and very dramatically by 2040. Secondly, we are progressing opportunities to monetize our academic content through AI deals, and we are seeking ones which will best serve our authors' interests. Bloomsbury was voted Publisher of the Year, hurrah, at the British Book Awards last Monday in recognition of the incredible work of our teams. So going on to the next slide, last year we launched our Bloomsbury 2030 vision, which many of you were present for the launch at number eight, Bishopsgate. Since then, We have made our largest acquisition to date, Roman and Littlefield. Since then, we were admitted in August to the FTSE 250. Since then, we've earned the Great Place to Work certification based on the views of our own staff about the company. And Finally, we've expanded our portfolio and continue to diversify for ongoing success. I'm very pleased now to hand over to my great colleague, Penny Scott-Bayfield.

Thank you, Nigel. So morning, everyone. So starting with the key financial highlights. So firstly, revenue for the year was $361 million, up 5%. We made a profit of $42.1 million, so a 12% margin. And as a reminder, as you well know, this is after last year's exceptional results. Our diluted EPS was 41.45p, reflecting our profit and a slightly lower effective tax rate. And then moving on to net cash, which was 17 million. And as you know, this is net of our 24 million sterling loan, which we took out to help fund our largest acquisition, Roman and Littlefield, in the first half. And then our final dividend up 5%, so we'll talk more about that later. So coming on to revenue, this is really again showcasing the strengths of digital and the resilience of print. With print, you see the impact of our acquisition of Roman Littlefield with the consumer print in line with last year. But again, many of you remember just how strong that was. E-books continued to grow, and that was driven by a 13% increase in our consumer e-books. So really interesting to see how that demand for different formats is so strong. And then coming on to audio, which as many of you know, we've been excited about for some time. And in fact, Kathleen will talk more about later. We saw that growth accelerating again. So that's up 57% on top of our 50% growth last year. And BDR delivered 2% growth, very resilient in a challenging market. And Jenny will talk more about both the BDR and the markets later. And so coming on to the strength of our balance sheet, which many of you know is always a key, very close to my heart. So I mentioned net cash of 17 million, that's net of our 24 million sterling loan. And we used our strong cash generation this year to pay 6 million of that off early. So that's a three year loan, but we've already started to pay that off. And we reduced our working capital, positive, and then goodwill and intangibles obviously increased because of the acquisition of Roman and Littlefield. So moving on to our cash flow, you can see here the strength of our trading, that 42 million profit enormously helping our cash. We've been able to reward shareholders, which is such a key priority for us with 12 million of dividends. And you can see here the acquisition of R and L for 65 million. And here, again, you see that benefit of the reduction in the working capital, again, really helping our cash flow. And then moving on to show you, very pleased to show you another year of dividend growth with that 5% increase in the final dividend on top of our 5% increase in the interim dividend and reiterating that we're very committed to our progressive dividend. So I will now hand you over to Tamsin and it is a coincidence that we are in the same color.