TIDMINF
RNS Number : 6883K
Informa PLC
06 January 2021
Informa LEI: 5493006VM2LKUPSEDU20
Informa PLC Press Release
6 January 2021
2020 Year-End Update
Stability and Security
Informa (LSE: INF.L), the Information Services, Advanced
Learning, B2B Exhibitions and Events Group today issued an update
on trading ahead of its 2020 Full Year Results on 22 April 2021,
confirming the Group's performance for 2020 will be in line with
the revenue guidance provided at the Half-Year Results in September
2020.
Key Highlights
-- Stability and Security... Delivery of Stability and Security
in 2020, in the face of significant COVID-19 disruption to physical
events, protecting and preserving long-term value of brands, talent
and customer relationships;
-- Subscription strength... Stability and Security underpinned
by strong performances in our Subscription-led businesses, which
delivered positive aggregate underlying growth across the year,
demonstrating the strength of our specialist brands;
-- Physical Events... Continued return and recovery of physical
events in Mainland China and other parts of Asia, combined with
pre-planned Postponement Programme (90% of physical events ex-China
scheduled from June 2021) and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines,
providing continued confidence in progressive return of physical
events through 2021 in North America and EMEA;
-- Digital acceleration... Digital services and virtual events
grew at pace in 2020, accelerating the integration of data and
digital technology into and around the physical event brands,
deepening customer relationships through smarter events and
intelligent B2B services;
-- COVID-19 Financing Action Plan... Programme of activities to
deliver Stability and Security in financing completed, with
earliest debt maturities extended to 2023, financial covenants
removed and GBP1bn+ of liquidity confirmed;
-- COVID-19 Cost Management Plan... GBP600m+ cost savings
delivered to plan by year-end, including GBP400m+ direct savings to
adjusted operating profit and GBP200m+ annualised indirect savings.
Combination of effective cost management, efficient financing and
robust subscriptions to deliver positive cash flow from Q1
2021;
-- 2020 outturn... Full year 2020 revenue expected to be in line
with guidance previously provided at the Half-Year Results in
September, in a range of GBP1.65bn to GBP1.68bn, with adjusted
operating profit expected to be in a range of GBP250m to
GBP270m;
-- Chair succession... John Rishton announced as Chair-Elect,
with a managed handover from Derek Mapp, completing at the Annual
General Meeting in June 2021.
Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive, Informa PLC, said:
"The Informa Group enters 2021 with an intention to use the progressive
return from COVID-19 to deepen our use of digital and data services,
thereby ensuring our products and brands remain relevant in a post
pandemic world. The continued strength and growth of our subscription
businesses and our prior decision to extend the physical Events
Postponement Programme should serve us well as markets gradually
open up and customer confidence recovers in the latter half of
2021. Equally important, will be our continued commitment to strengthening
our digital and data capabilities."
He added:
"From the outset of the pandemic, we have been focused on protecting
and preserving the long-term value of our Brands and Businesses,
single-mindedly pursuing a strategy of Stability and Security through
2020. Our Subscription-led businesses have performed well throughout.
In our Event-led businesses, in the absence of physical events
in most regions, our brands and strong customer relationships enabled
us to shift at speed to digital services and virtual events. At
the same time, we have significantly reduced our operating costs,
secured greater financial flexibility, deployed a major physical
Event Postponement Programme and, critically, provided consistent
support to Colleagues and Customers."
===========================================================================
2020 Trading Highlights
Demand for specialist data and knowledge remained strong
throughout 2020, despite the widespread disruption and uncertainty
created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This was evident in the
consistent performance of our Subscription-led businesses, in
aggregate contributing more than GBP300m of adjusted operating
profit in the year and providing the Group with strength in the
face of significant disruption to our physical events
businesses.
The strength of our Subscription-led businesses, combined with
the progressive return of physical events in Mainland China and
valuable contributions from our specialist media, marketing
services and virtual events activities, are expected to deliver
2020 Group revenues in line with the GBP1.7bn- guidance provided at
our Half-Year Results in September, despite minimal physical events
activity returning elsewhere, including within our largest market,
North America.
The Group revenue outturn for 2020 is expected to be within the
range of GBP1.65bn to GBP1.68bn and Group Adjusted Operating Profit
within the range of GBP250m to GBP270m.
Subscription-led businesses
Our portfolio of subscription-led, specialist knowledge and
information businesses continued to perform well through 2020,
delivering aggregate positive underlying growth for the year,
underpinned by our specialist brands and data, strong customer
relationships and forward-booked subscriptions.
Taylor & Francis delivered a strong performance despite
university campus lockdowns, with underlying revenue growth for
2020 expected to be broadly flat. This reflects continued strength
in subscriptions and open access within Research Publishing,
underpinned by consistent demand for our specialist content and
growing range of open research services.
In addition, within our Advanced Learning business,
COVID-19-related disruption to the physical books supply chain and
certain sales channels that had a marked impact on the first half
of 2020, steadily improved through the back-end of the year, with
stock availability and customer ordering patterns returning to more
normal trends.
Informa Intelligence performed consistently well through 2020,
delivering good growth and strong profitability across its
portfolio of specialist intelligence brands, data products and
targeted customer solutions.
Across the different businesses, renewal rates remained
consistently over 90%, Annualised Contract Values positive and
forward sales pipelines strong. This is expected to deliver
underlying revenue growth for the year of just under 2%, in line
with the first-half run-rate. This would have been higher but for
the small portion of revenue generated through physical Awards
events and related activities, which were inevitably impacted by
COVID-19.
Informa Intelligence is now clearly focused on four main
markets: Pharma Intelligence, Retail Financial Intelligence,
Maritime Intelligence and Asset Intelligence. All performed well in
2020, with Pharma Intelligence particularly strong, reflecting the
strength of specialist brands and proprietary content, combined
with the benefits of investment made over recent years to enhance
data sets and strengthen platform capabilities.
Event-led businesses
Our three Event-led businesses, Informa Markets, Informa Connect
and Informa Tech, all faced significant disruption to physical
events activities in 2020 across most regions of the world, from
key territories like the United States (c40% of 2019 Events
revenue) to smaller markets for our businesses, like the UK
(c5%).
Physical events did resume in another of our major markets,
Mainland China (c12% of 2019 Events revenue), from late June,
progressively building momentum through the second half of the
year, albeit with limited international participation. Rebooking
for 2021 events in the region has been encouraging, underlining the
pent-up demand for physical trade shows as markets re-open post
COVID-19.
In the last few months of 2020, we also ran our first physical
events in Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Egypt and Japan, as well as
our first outdoor event in North America, The Fort Lauderdale
International Boat Show. Whilst the latter was smaller in scale
than the 2019 edition, the quality of exhibitors and attendees was
strong, highlighting the ability to run secure outdoor events
within the boundaries of COVID-19 restrictions.
The pace and rate of the COVID-19 impact on physical events
through 2020 created a demand to shift to virtual events at volume.
This saw more than 500 virtual events of different shapes and sizes
run through the year. This real-time digital experience has
significantly accelerated our digital product development and we
will further develop and enhance this capability in 2021.
2021 Approach & Outlook
Our Subscription-led businesses, many of which are currently in
mid-renewal season, approach 2021 with strength in both renewal
rates and annualised contract values.
Within Taylor & Francis, the strength of our brands and
depth of specialist content put us in a good position, despite
ongoing disruption to University schedules and related budget
pressures. This is reflected in robust annual subscription renewals
through the backend of 2020 and continued strong demand for our
open access products.
Informa Intelligence is entering 2021 with a focused portfolio
of high quality subscription brands, attracting high renewal rates,
positive annualised contract values and robust new business
pipelines, which together are expected to deliver improving levels
of underlying revenue growth.
Across our Event-led businesses, we are using the learning,
investment and digital product development of 2020 to further
strengthen and enhance our digital and data capabilities in 2021.
Over the medium-term, we see an opportunity to build a stronger
business by integrating data and digital technology more deeply
into these businesses, strengthening the quality of revenue and
deepening customer relationships. This will also help to offset
some of the revenue from peripheral physical events and tertiary
activities that may not return post-COVID-19, as customers focus
investment on attending major brands, smarter events and integrated
and intelligent B2B services.
As the vaccine and testing programmes progress, markets
gradually open up and customer confidence starts to recover in
2021, we are focused on making the most of physical event
opportunities as they arise. It is likely to be a year of return
for physical events, rather than full rebound and recovery but the
shape and mix of our portfolio, focused on major brands in major
markets on major trade routes, puts us in a good position. This is
further supported by our decision to extend our Postponement
Programme for physical events, pushing the launch of the 2021
calendar to late Spring but with 90% of the physical events outside
of Mainland China that are planned in the year now scheduled to run
from June onwards.
Enquiries
Informa PLC
Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive
Gareth Wright , Group Finance Director +44 (0)20 7017 5771
Richard Menzies-Gow , Director of IR +44 (0)20 7017 7096
& Comms +44 (0)20 3377 3445
Teneo Strategy
Tim Burt / Zoë Watt +44 (0)20 7240 2486
========================================== =====================
Notes to Editors
Informa PLC
Informa is a leading international Information Services,
Advanced Learning, B2B Exhibitions and Events Group. It helps
commercial, professional and academic communities work smarter and
make better decisions faster, through specialist content and
intelligence, and opportunities to connect and learn. For more
information, please visit www.informa.com .
This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the
London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct
Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United
Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution
of this information may apply. For further information, please
contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com.
RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms
and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information
contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an
anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services.
For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange
use the personal data you provide us, please see our Privacy
Policy.
END
TSTUVAARAAUARUR
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 06, 2021 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT)
Grafico Azioni Informa (LSE:INF)
Storico
Da Mar 2024 a Apr 2024
Grafico Azioni Informa (LSE:INF)
Storico
Da Apr 2023 a Apr 2024
