Informa FY19 Profit Up, Lifts Dividend; Sees COVID-19 Impact In Events Business

(RTTNews) - Informa plc (INFMF.PK, INF.L), an Exhibitions, Events, Business Intelligence and Academic Publishing Group, reported Tuesday that its fiscal 2019 profit before tax grew 13 percent to 318.7 million pounds from 282.1 million pounds.

Earnings per share, meanwhile, fell 8.6 percent to 18 pence from 19.7 pence last year.

Adjusted profit before tax was 821.4 million pounds, compared to 649.7 million pounds last year. Adjusted earnings per share were 51.3 pence, compared to 49.2 pence a year ago.

Revenue climbed 22 percent to 2.89 billion pounds from prior year's 2.37 billion pounds. Revenue grew 3.5 percent on an underlying basis, reflecting full year of UBM.

Further, the Board has proposed a final dividend of 15.95 pence per share, a 7.4 percent increase from the prior year. This will result in total dividends for the year of 23.5p, a 7.3 percent year-in-year increase.

Looking ahead, Stephen Carter, Group Chief Executive, said, "Our subscriptions-related businesses, which account for around 35 percent of revenue, continue to grow consistently. However, we are facing a 2020 impact from COVID-19 in our Events-related businesses and so we have used our strong customer and supplier relationships to swiftly deploy a material Postponement Programme, shifting our Events Calendar to later dates in 2020."

As of March 10, the company agreed or are in the process of agreeing the Re-Scheduling of around 45 large event brands to a date later in 2020, representing budgeted revenue of around 350 million pounds.

Around 70 smaller brands have also been Re-Scheduled with revenue of around 50 million pounds.