Bloomsbury set to report £30 million profit and outline digital growth plans

The publisher is seeing strong demand from both consumer and academic markets

Life has gone particularly well for publishing company Bloomsbury (BMY). The reading boom during the pandemic has not faded away. Demand from consumers and students for books has remained strong despite the cost-of-living crisis. Bloomsbury’s recent hits include Samantha Shannon’s novel, A Day of Fallen Night – the prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree.

On 15 March, Bloomsbury said its results for the 12 months to 28 February 2023 would be ahead of previous expectations with revenue above £260 million and pre-tax profit in the region of £30 million.

The exact figures will be reported on 31 May, to be followed on 21 June by a capital markets day which will provide more information on its digital offering.

In December 2021 Bloomsbury bought a business called ABC-CLIO for £17.3 million to strengthen its position in digital academic resources, including a big presence in the US high school library market.

Investors will want to know how it plans to replicate ABC-CLIO’s US success in other geographic territories and the initial response to the launch of its academic streaming content platform, Bloomsbury Video Library, which has more than 2,000 films covering a large range of subjects. [SG]

Salesforce faces the challenge of geographical expansion versus protecting profits

Software giant faces tricky prospect of trying to please everyone

The Salesforce (CRM:NASDAQ) share price has surged 56% in 2023, but there are concerns that growth will slow this year.

The $206 billion technology giant has been in the news a lot lately, trouncing earnings and revenue forecasts in January, upping guidance, and catching the eye of activist investors Elliott Management, Third Point and others.

Caught in the crossfire of a debate about sales expansion versus margin protection, the customer relationship management software firm faces a challenge to extend its international expansion without sacrificing some short-term profit. How it deals with this conundrum will certainly grab investors’ attention when it reports the February to April results on 31 May.

Pre-announced plans to cut its workforce by 10% will help, as will plans to reduce its office space footprint, but probably not this quarter. More job cuts could be coming, some analysts speculate. Consensus, according to Investing.com data, is for $1.61 of earnings per share on $8.18 billion sales. [SF]

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