Profit at the illustrious Bloomsbury Publishing, widely recognised for their Harry Potter series, faced a downturn of almost a fifth during its latest fiscal year even though revenues were on an upswing.
The London-listed firm released figures showing a pre-tax profit of £32.5m for the year up to 28 February 2025, marking a dip from the £41.5m secured in the prior year, as reported by City AM.
Yet, this was still an improvement on the £25.4m reported two years ago.
New data submitted to the London Stock Exchange indicates that Bloomsbury’s turnover climbed from £342.7m to £361m over the year, thus outperforming market predictions.
In response to the performance, Bloomsbury’s board, which publishes titles from Sarah J. Maas and others, is proposing a final dividend of 11.54p, making the total yearly dividend 15.43p per share, a 5% hike from the previous year.
Nigel Newton, founder and CEO, credits the impressive results to the robustness of the firm’s diverse “portfolio of portfolios” approach and signalled major advances in the Bloomsbury 2030 strategy.
“We are making meaningful strides across all pillars – growth, portfolio and people,” shared Newton with investors earlier on Thursday.
These outcomes have been bolstered by the strategic $63m acquisition of American academic publisher Rowman & Littlefield last year, which contributed an additional £19.8m in revenue and fuelled a 12% boost in non-consumer division revenues to £105m.
The profit in this segment leapt to £11.4m, along with an 18% increase in academic and professional sales compared to the year before.
Bloomsbury now a member of the FTSE 250
The publishing powerhouse has commenced implementing operational efficiencies across its expanded academic division, with the integration of Rowman reportedly “progressing well.”
The company’s digital academic arm, ‘Bloomsbury digital resources’, posted a two per cent revenue increase to £27m, reaffirming its ambitious target of achieving £41m in digital revenue by 2027/28.
As part of its strategic expansion into Asia, Bloomsbury is set to launch a new office in Singapore this year, building on its remarkable growth in India and Australia.
The consumer division saw revenue climb three per cent to £256m, driven by the continued success of key commercial and literary titles. However, profit dipped from £37.8m to £31.4m, as the company faced challenging comparatives following a stellar year in 2023/24, largely driven by the TikTok-fuelled fiction sales phenomenon.
Bloomsbury made headlines in August when it debuted in the FTSE 250 and claimed the coveted title of Publisher of the Year at the 2025 British Book Awards.
The company is also exploring avenues to monetise its academic content through responsible AI licensing agreements.
Looking to the future, Bloomsbury anticipates trading for 2025 and 2026 to align broadly with consensus expectations, citing confidence in its global positioning and balanced business model.
