Bloomsbury Publishing Share Discussion Threads

[opodio] 13/6/2018 09:23

It’s taken time for shareholders in Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY:230p) to reap the financial rewards for their loyalty since I included the shares in my 2015 Bargain Shares Portfolio, but investors are certainly warming now to the company best known for publishing author JK Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter books. Having paid out dividends per share of 25.1p in the past four years, the board has just hiked the final payout by 13.5 per cent to 6.36p to take the total to 7.51p for the financial year to the end of February 2018, covered by EPS of 13.9p, up 10 per cent year on year. Their optimism is well founded.

Buoyed by an outstanding performance from its consumer division, which delivered 20 per cent increases in both operating profit and revenues to £11.4m and £102m, respectively, the publisher modestly beat Peel Hunt’s pre-tax profit forecast of £13m and that’s after it had been upgraded by 7 per cent post the pre-close trading update as I highlighted at the time (‘Small-cap earnings beats’, 21 Mar 2018).

Sales of children’s books soared by almost a quarter to £69m, helped in no small part by the special editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to mark the 20th year anniversary of its publication, the illustrated Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Bloomsbury also published two colour background titles for the British Library Harry Potter exhibition: Harry Potter – A History of Magic: The Book of The Exhibition; and Harry Potter – A Journey Through A History of Magic.

Excluding Harry Potter, children’s book sales were still up by 14 per cent, helped by over 1m sales of Sarah Maas’ book Throne of Glass, and Kate Pankhurst's Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, the bestselling children's general non-fiction title of 2017. The autumn book list is equally strong, and profits will also get a lift this year from the recently announced acquisition of London-based academic publisher I.B. Tauris.

There is good news too on Bloomsbury’s 2020 digital strategy which is on track to deliver £5m of profit and £15m of revenues by the 2021-22 financial year. As has always been the case, the company’s balance sheet is in rude health: net cash increased from £15.5m to £25.2m, a sum worth 30p a share, albeit £4.8m of that has since been used to acquire I.B. Tauris.

Analysts have taken note. Malcolm Morgan at brokerage Peel Hunt lifted his current year pre-tax estimate by 7 per cent to £14m, with upgrades for later years to follow to reflect progress being made in digital publishing. Investors have, too, which is why Bloomsbury’s share price has broken above the 190p glass ceiling that capped progress over the past four years.

[opodio] 13/6/2018 08:31

BMY new highs


AGM 18 July

[gucci] 11/6/2018 22:37

BMY ticks a lot of boxes, passes the Mark Minervini criteria and recently tipped by Simon T in IC

[albanyvillas] 11/6/2018 18:38

400p target here by year end

[albanyvillas] 11/6/2018 15:31

Breaking out

[gorse] 11/6/2018 12:39

I missed this announcement last week:

[lucicavi] 11/6/2018 10:36

interesting

[podgyted] 25/5/2018 23:26

Several "conservative" shares have broken out of their historical price bands recently - this, PMP, UAI .....

I'm now experimenting with NXR and PHTM - just a thought.

[essentialinvestor] 24/5/2018 16:14

Simon has been highlighted BMY several times, good call by him.

I see the poster who told me he could not see the reason to Buy at 1.77
has disappeared.

[18bt] 24/5/2018 12:02

Update from Simon Thompson in IC Online under heading Bloomsbury's magical results. Won't publish article as subscriber content, but conclusion is:

Malcolm Morgan at brokerage Peel Hunt lifted his current year pre-tax estimate by 7 per cent to £14m, with upgrades for later years to follow to reflect progress being made in digital publishing. Investors have, too, which is why Bloomsbury’s share price has broken above the 190p glass ceiling that capped progress over the past four years.

Trading on a cash-adjusted PE ratio of 15, and with potentially significant international rights sales of the two Harry Potter background titles not embedded in analyst forecasts, I would definitely run with the 52 per cent profit on your holdings if you have been following my advice.

[modform] 22/5/2018 15:33

I have added on the breakout

[essentialinvestor] 22/5/2018 15:03

1.78 two weeks ago, I did try to highlight it.

Plenty of shares available on the offer as well.

[shauney2] 22/5/2018 12:27

From Shares Magazine




TARGET PRICE RAISED

Numis analyst Paul Richards reiterates his ‘buy’ advice and ups his price target from 248p to 275p. He says: ‘The group is enjoying strong momentum across both the consumer and non-consumer sides of its business and has implemented a number of initiatives called Bigger Bloomsbury that will materially drive performance.’

[modform] 22/5/2018 12:16

Ok woody, I have a small holding here in my sipp for the yield but haven't added , just waiting for the eod price to confirm breakout before adding.

[woodcutter] 22/5/2018 11:09

picked up a few today with several bites. lot more to come from digital I suspect plus good yield and broken out of a 4 year trading range.

woody

[gorse] 22/5/2018 10:02

BMy seems to have a really solid balance sheet with Current Assets way in excess of Total Liabilities.

[cwa1] 22/5/2018 09:48

Numis upgrade TP from 248p to 275p:-

22 May Numis Buy 222.00 248.00 275.00 Retains

[essentialinvestor] 22/5/2018 08:11

Divi increase is significantly beyond my expectations.

[18bt] 22/5/2018 07:31

Well, 2018 PTP, EPS and div all above expectations and signifcant upgrade to current year - could still be on 4% yield and conservative PER

[from8to800] 22/5/2018 07:14

hXXp://m.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/mobile/news/detail/13649577.htmlRev and eps up mid teens %, strong cash.Curious about the market reaction to this one.

[broadgreen] 22/5/2018 07:11

hxxp://www.bloomsbury-ir.co.uk/html/financial/f_latest.asp

No RNS yet for some reason

[essentialinvestor] 21/5/2018 11:58

FY tomorrow.