TIDMINF
RNS Number : 4382O
Informa PLC
07 November 2016
Press release
7 November 2016
Informa PLC
Nine Months Trading Update
Growth Acceleration Plan delivering consistent trading
performance combined with increasing Balance and Breadth. On track
for full year expectations
London: Informa (LSE: INF.L), the international Business
Intelligence, Exhibitions, Events and Academic Publishing Group,
has today issued a trading update on its performance for the
nine-months ending 30 September 2016.
group performance
The Group continues to make both operational and financial
progress and remains on track for full year expectations. The
portfolio changes over the last few years, the increasing level of
recurring revenue from subscriptions, our growing scale in B2B
exhibitions and large-scale confexes and our international
expansion strategy particularly in the US, provide the Group with
increasing Balance and Breadth. As always, there are variances in
trading across verticals and geographies, with continued strength
in North America and Asia balanced by ongoing weakness in Brazil,
and some signs in Europe of an impact from the uncertainty created
by Brexit in our delegate-based businesses.
We remain focused on the Disciplined Delivery of the 2014-2017
Growth Acceleration Plan ("GAP"), our strategy to improve levels of
operational fitness across the Group and return all our businesses
to growth. Investment remains on schedule and on budget, with
around GBP50m being invested in more than 30 initiatives across the
Group during 2016. Similarly, year-end performance remains on track
on revenue, operating profit, earnings, cash flow and dividend
growth.
The GAP acquisition strategy recently led to the addition of
Penton Information Services (see below for more details). This adds
further scale and US presence, significantly strengthening our
Global Exhibitions and Business Intelligence Divisions. The
integration programme begins this month, led by Patrick Martell,
the Chief Executive of Business Intelligence, who has also assumed
the role of Chief Executive and Integration Officer for Penton. The
focus now is on ensuring Delivery of the 2016 financial targets of
both companies and securing early 2017 trading, an intensive period
for subscription renewals and a number of our major Exhibitions
Brands.
Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive, said: "Informa
continues to make both operational and financial progress through
2016, and remains on track to deliver another year of growth in
Revenue, Profits and Earnings.
He added: "The recent addition of Penton increases our US scale
and reach, further strengthening our capabilities in Global
Exhibitions and Business Intelligence in particular.
"Together with our Growth Acceleration Plan, it increases the
Balance and Breadth across the portfolio, underpinning the
potential for future growth."
Divisional Highlights
Global Exhibitions: The benefits of scale and international
expansion continue to deliver a strong performance across our
Exhibitions portfolio, with nine-month organic revenue growth of
10.6%. While the fourth quarter is a relatively quiet period for
major Exhibitions, advanced booking trends across the business for
the first half of 2017 are predictable and consistent.
Investment in our Market Maker strategy also continues, with a
focus on strengthening our digital and data capabilities in order
to better understand our customers, improve levels of engagement
and enable us to monetise these relationships in new ways, both
within and outside of our Exhibitions.
Business Intelligence: The focus on subscriptions and customer
management continues to build operational momentum, reflected in
ongoing positive trends in Renewal Rates and Annualised Contract
Values. This improvement, combined with its programme of
operational fitness resulted in an end to the Division's long trend
of revenue declines, with flat organic growth across the nine-month
period. Looking forward, the business is on track for positive
growth across the year with an upward trajectory into 2017.
Our GAP investment in new platforms and upgraded and enhanced
product features is picking up pace, with over 35 individual
product releases scheduled by the end of 2017. Many will deliver
tangible workflow improvements to customers and give us confidence
that the steady improvement in underlying growth rates will
accelerate in 2017.
Academic Publishing: Our focus on the Upper Level Academic
market and commitment to continual improvement in operating
efficiency underpins another robust performance overall. Nine-month
organic growth was +0.7%, reflecting consistent levels of growth in
our strong Journals business offset by a small but anticipated
decline in our Books business. This overall positive mix, the
strength of our Academic Brands and the increasing weighting to
year-end trading gives us confidence we will deliver another solid
year, including strong reported revenue growth and further positive
organic growth, albeit possibly a touch below 2015 levels.
The Group has today formally announced the planned retirement in
2017 of Roger Horton after over a decade as Divisional Chief
Executive. The search for a successor is already underway with
advice and support from recruitment firm Russell Reynolds. Roger
will remain as Chief Executive through April 2017 and then provide
support to his successor in a handover period through to the end of
Q2 2017.
Knowledge & Networking: The restructuring of this Division
continues, further reducing the long tail of small conferences to
focus on large scale confexes and brands in the three core markets
of Life Sciences, Finance and TMT, and adding data and specialist
content to deepen the relationship with the communities we
serve.
We are starting to see improving organic revenue trends, with a
nine-month decline of -2.2%, more than halving the -4.7% run rate
in the first half of the year. We continue to target flat organic
growth across the year, with a number of our larger event Brands
that run during this period tracking well, despite some volatility
in delegate revenue in Europe.
addition of Penton Information Services to the INFORMA group
The addition of Penton Information Services was approved by
Informa Shareholders on 10 October 2016 and completed on 2 November
2016, bringing greater Balance, Breadth and US scale to the Informa
Group.
As announced on 15 September 2016, the acquisition was funded
through a combination of new debt and equity.
The equity component of the funding included a
fully-underwritten GBP715m Rights Issue plus consideration of
GBP76m to the sellers. The Rights Issue Shares and dealings in Nil
Paid Rights were admitted to the London Stock Exchange on 11
October 2016, and the results of the Rights Issue announced on 26
October 2016, with nearly 160m Rights Issue Shares validly taken up
by existing Shareholders.
The debt component of the funding included a $675m acquisition
facility. We are currently in the process of refinancing a
signification portion of this facility in the US Private Placement
market. Present indications are that subject to pricing and term
maturities, we will be able to execute this refinancing with
current and new Informa debt holders at market competitive
prices.
Enquiries
Informa PLC
+44 (0) 20 7017
Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive 5771
+44 (0) 20 7017
Gareth Wright, Group Finance Director 7096
Richard Menzies-Gow, Director of +44 (0) 20 3377
Investor Relations 3445
Teneo Blue Rubicon
+44 (0) 20 7420
Tim Burt / Ben Ullmann 3141
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Analysts and investors
Gareth Wright, Group Finance Director, and Richard Menzies-Gow,
Director of Investor Relations, will be hosting a conference call
for analysts and investors today to discuss the Nine-Months Trading
Update, commencing at 9.00am. Dial-in details: +44 20 3043 2002/
Confirmation Code: 6913750
Notes to editors
About Informa PLC
Informa operates at the heart of the Knowledge and Information
Economy. It is one of the world's leading business intelligence,
academic publishing, knowledge and events businesses.
With more than 7,500 colleagues globally, it has a presence in
all major geographies, including North America, South America,
Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
To learn more, please visit www.informa.com
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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