Bloomsbury Publishing Share Discussion Threads

[adamb1978] 23/8/2023 09:10

Yes, I agree Shanklin. Very hard to see why they'd need to raise equity - over £50m in the bank at Feb so probably £60m now and if you include some earnings from an aquisition target. Means they could spend say £120m - £150m on an acquisition and still have leverage <1x EBITDA...and a conservative team like this one really is never going to do a deal of that size

I'd just put the RNS down to a poor advised IR strategy or something like that

[shanklin] 23/8/2023 08:16

BMY finances are so strong, an equity raise does not seem particularly likely. But a BS RNS like that from many a company would be done with exactly that in mind. Hopefully not here

[trident5] 23/8/2023 08:14

They don't issue these type of RNSs very often and this seems to have been hardly that newsworthy. Were they trying to shore up the share price just ahead of an equity issue for an acquisition?

[shanklin] 23/8/2023 08:14

At least with today's RNS, we have a better handle on said share price drop. BMY does seem very cheap under £4 IMHO.

[cwa1] 23/8/2023 08:10

Its not a great response to a recent circa 15% fall in the share price to under £4.

I genuinely don't think it's MEANT to be a response to that, but that's jut MHO

[shanklin] 23/8/2023 08:06

If they want to do a puff piece, they could just do a press release.

Its not a great response to a recent circa 15% fall in the share price to under £4.

[cwa1] 23/8/2023 07:17

Morning Shanklin

To be fair to BMY, they did flag it up as a "non-regulatory" RNS, thus meaning it didn't contain material financial information, So, personally, I'm entirely comfortable with the release :-)

[shanklin] 23/8/2023 07:09

Have to say its a complete BS RNS given there is no commentary about overall trading. I thought BMY (which I hold) was better than this.

[thamestrader] 22/8/2023 16:07

yeah, weird - they must use the same ranking algorithms as tripadvisor.

[trident5] 22/8/2023 12:45

It's ranked 452 in Amazon's bestseller list and 693rd in their bestseller Romance Books - not at all clear how it has a higher rank in the more encompassing list than in the Romance list.

[adamb1978] 21/8/2023 17:42

You might be right EI. I can't find my notes from the call but perhaps its just that division

[essentialinvestor] 21/8/2023 17:08

Adam, that's incorrect to the best of my knowledge - they may have been referring to their Digital Resources division, unless I'm badly mistaken they also sell a lot of text books (degree/post graduate level) in various academic disciplines.

[adamb1978] 21/8/2023 16:58

BMY said recently, I believe, that because they sell to institutions rather than individuals ChatCGT was unlikely to be a threat to their business.

I don't recall the rest of the answer but think it was on the investormeetcompany call a couple months ago

[essentialinvestor] 21/8/2023 16:54

SP turned the week ChatGP started getting real traction with comment that
it had the potential to disrupt academic publishing, a sector where BMY
spent huge amounts of money to build up.


How disruptive is it likely to be is way beyond me.

Anyone who works in publishing with a view?.

[adamb1978] 21/8/2023 16:33

It would need to be a huge acquisition for that Nigelog. With the cash on their balance sheet and some debt financing, they could do a material acquisition without using equity.

I hope that are actually in the process of doing a deal, and that that is why the dividend wasnt increased materially and/or a share buy back introduced. They have more than enough cash on the balance sheet for a rainy day and a deal sized deal (assuming at the right price, synergistic etc) might help get some more momentum behind the price.

[nigelog] 21/8/2023 15:56

I do hope it’s not some big acquisition and Bloomsbury is thinking of using a combination of a rights issue as well as it’s cash, maybe they have sounded out some of their big shareholders about it. Or has that guy in the big short film going to be right about a market collapse before Xmas?

[riverman77] 19/8/2023 20:56

Nearly everything was down on Friday, don't think anything stock specific.

[nigelog] 19/8/2023 20:11

Why the drop today, what (again) do we not know. Divided pays out on Friday.

[terry236] 05/8/2023 20:46

Terrible news!

[crazycoops] 05/8/2023 08:15

Very sad news https://news.sky.com/story/adrienne-vaughan-bloomsbury-publishing-executive-dies-in-boat-crash-aged-45-12933836

[saltwood] 02/8/2023 17:08

Yes, I agree AdamB1978. Patience will be our friend, I think!

[adamb1978] 01/8/2023 19:08

Yes, agreed Saltwood. Also in better market conditions, their record of consistent growth, strong ROCE/ROE, margin improvements, net cash etc could lead to a far higher multiple that they're on today.

Completely different sector but if you look at mid-cap engineering type companies, they demonstrate similar characteristics and can trade on 20x.

However until interest rates come down and there are greater animal spirits in the market again, BMY share price will be constrained but I dont see much downside though

[saltwood] 01/8/2023 18:05

Starting to look good value again..(on a 3-5 year basis). The real sweet spot here is the subscription-based Bloomsbury Digital Resources. It combines high growth with unique IP, predictability of income and high margins. If they can acquire additional academic resources to plug into this division they could exceed their already ambitious growth targets.