TIDMINF
RNS Number : 3034T
Informa PLC
14 November 2023
Informa LEI: 5493006VM2LKUPSEDU20
Informa PLC: Ten-Month Trading Update
14 November 2023
Accelerating Growth
Informa's major brands, geographic breadth and depth in
specialist markets are delivering further outperformance in 2023
and strong momentum into 2024
Informa (LSE: INF.L), the international B2B Events, Specialist
Data, Digital Services and Academic Markets Group today published a
trading update, confirming continuing strong growth across the
portfolio, a further increase to 2023 market guidance and an
extended share buyback programme.
Stephen A. Carter , Group Chief Executive, Informa, said:
"At Informa, we have built leading positions serving B2B and Academic
Markets around the world, embedding our products and services with
customers, and creating long-term opportunities for growth and
scale."
He added: "We are confirming an upgrade to revenue and profit in
2023 and extending our share buyback programme to GBP1.15bn. In
2024, our task is to continue to improve our product and service
offering, grow organically, and use our cash flows and balance
sheet to seize opportunities to build and buy further scale."
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Highlights
-- 2023 Outperformance... Strength and momentum across the
portfolio (10-month Group underlying revenue growth of 31.7%), lead
to a further increase in 2023 full year expectations to Revenues of
GBP3.15bn+ (from GBP3.05bn) and Adjusted Operating Profit of
GBP840m+ (from GBP790m);
-- Specialisation... 75+ Research subject areas, 600+ major B2B
Brands, 20+ B2B market categories, 15 specialist Tech Research
sectors, 40+ Digital Media Brands, 20m+ known, engaged
audience;
-- First Party Data & Technology... The scale and depth of
our First Party Data, delivered by IIRIS, and the increasing
application of artificial intelligence in customer service, search,
content and data analytics, is enhancing customer value, improving
efficiency and creating growth opportunities;
-- B2B Leadership... In an increasingly digital world, demand
for high quality face-to-face connections, B2B market access and
highly qualified sales intelligence is higher than ever, fuelling
strong underlying growth at Informa Markets (+65.0% after 10
months), Informa Connect (+15.6%) and Informa Tech (+5.6%);
-- Academic Strength... The market for specialist, verified
knowledge and research is also in structural growth, underpinning
the continuing strength of Taylor & Francis (+3.2%). Underlying
strength in Pay-to-Read Subscriptions and Advanced Learning is
being supported by growth in open research volumes and other
Pay-to-Publish services;
-- International Breadth... The power of our Brands and
operating reach across 10+ major markets deliver breadth and
growth, with full year revenues expected to exceed 2019 pre-covid
levels in North America, South America, ASEAN, the Middle East,
Europe and China ;
-- Targeted Expansion... In 2023 we have redeployed GBP1bn+ of
Informa Intelligence proceeds (c.GBP2.5bn value / c.28x average
EV/EBITDA) into M&A, at an average post-synergy multiple of
c.9x EV/EBITDA. These businesses are immediately contributing to
growth, whilst further strengthening our market positions in
Foodservice (Winsight), Specialist Tech Research (Canalys),
Packaging and Aviation (Tarsus) and Healthcare Technology
(HIMSS);
-- Accelerating shareholder returns... An improving underlying
performance, cash flow and balance sheet strength enables us to
extend the share buyback programme to GBP1.15bn, an increase of up
to GBP150m through to our Full Year Results on 7 March 2024.
Trading Update: Accelerating Growth
2023 Outperformance: Full Year Revenue and Adjusted Profit ahead
of market guidance
The strength, depth and international breadth of our portfolio
of specialist brands continues to deliver good performances across
the Group, giving us confidence in a strong outcome in 2023 and
continuing momentum into 2024.
Our updated 2023 Group guidance is for Revenue of GBP3.15bn+ (up
from GBP3.05bn) and Group Adjusted Operating Profit of GBP840m+ (up
from GBP790m, average GBP/USD at 1.24).
This performance represents a c.10% increase on 2019 Group
revenues or a c.20% increase excluding the Informa Intelligence
businesses that have since been divested.
2024 Outlook
Ongoing conflict and macro-economic challenges in some
countries, including heightened inflation, higher interest rates
and variable demand, is creating a degree of market uncertainty and
volatility.
Informa's strategic focus on growing, specialist B2B and
Academic Markets (rather than B2C Markets), combined with major
brands and international breadth, provides resilience and strength.
Furthermore, our range of specialist products and services, which
are deeply embedded within our customer markets, deliver forward
visibility and predictability, including subscription revenues in
both academic research and B2B data and analytics, and advance
bookings across our B2B events portfolio, providing visibility on
c.GBP1bn of 2024 revenue to date.
Informa Markets...International Scale, Specialisation and
Growth
Major B2B brands, reach and breadth across 10+ major
international markets and deep positions in 20+ growing market
categories is delivering accelerating growth across our portfolio
of transaction-led, live and on-demand events.
Full year revenues will be ahead of 2019 levels in all major
geographies, including North America, South America, ASEAN, Europe
and China, the latter having seen significant acceleration through
the year following the removal of COVID restrictions.
Similarly, we have seen growth in all major market categories in
2023, with particularly strong performances in Healthcare (Arab
Health, Medlab), Health & Nutrition (Natural Products Expo
West, Supplyside West), Pharma (CPhI Worldwide, CPhI China), Beauty
(China Beauty Expo) and Luxury (Fort Lauderdale International Boat
Show, Art Miami, Monaco Yacht Show).
Structural demand for face-to-face connections and B2B market
access remains high, and the quality of our product offering is
improving, with technology enabling better matchmaking between
buyers and sellers, on-demand access to content and data to support
faster decision making and a range of other value-added
services.
Tarsus: Combination and Growth
The Tarsus business has continued to perform well
post-acquisition ($940m valuation / sub-9x post-synergy EV/EBITDA),
delivering 65% underlying revenue growth through the period to
date, with strong performances in Healthcare (Health Connect
Partners), Anti-Aging & Aesthetics (A4M Spring Congress) and
Aviation (Dubai Airshow).
Alongside operational delivery, we have been focused on
combining the Tarsus businesses and brands with Informa and this
process is now largely complete, ensuring we will enter 2024 as one
business. This sees c.60% of Tarsus' 2024 revenue included within
Informa Markets (including all major biennial events), with c.40%
combined into Informa Connect, where we see increasing
opportunities for differentiated High Value, Branded, Specialist
Professional Content-led B2B Events (eg SuperReturn, Bio-Europe, IM
Power, A4M).
It is our intention to report full year 2023 divisional revenue
and operating profit on an integrated basis, including the Tarsus
contribution.
Informa Connect...Content, Community and Growth
Major content-led brands, international reach and depth across
industries and professional communities and increasingly powerful
customer data and analytics are delivering strong growth across
Informa Connect.
Post the addition of Tarsus and Winsight brands, the business is
generating more than GBP600m of annual revenue, split broadly two
thirds Live & On-Demand Events and one third Digital Services,
with 70%+ of revenue generated in North America.
All major market categories are performing well in 2023,
including Finance (SuperReturn, SuperInvestor) Life Sciences
(Bio-Europe, Biotech Showcase), Foodservice (National Restaurant
Show, FSTEC), Anti-Aging & Aesthetics (Anti-Aging World
Congress, A4M Winter Congress) and Pop Culture (FanExpo Canada,
Megacon Orlando).
In Finance, our retail banking data and analytics business,
Curinos, is delivering strong growth in subscriptions and we are
investing to further expand the product offering. Similarly, in our
other subscription-led businesses, Zephyr (Wealth Management Data
& Reporting) and IGM (Fixed Income/FX Data & Information),
trading is robust, and we are targeting additional growth through a
combination of technology enhancement, service expansion and cross
promotion across the broader Finance portfolio.
Data and analytics are at the heart of all organic investment
and product innovation within Connect, with our first party data
providing increasingly powerful customer insights to support
targeted marketing and product development. More directly, our data
is underpinning our Lead Insights product, which has significantly
enhanced the value proposition for event sponsors and other
partners by providing an end-to-end customer platform for scoring,
qualifying and activating leads.
Informa Tech...First Party Data, Diversified Services and
Growth
Our focus on serving B2B markets and the strength of our
specialist technology brands, deep industry knowledge and
relationships, breadth of first party data through IIRIS (20m+
records) and growing range of high value B2B services have combined
to deliver good growth in 2023, despite the challenges and
reductions in some B2C and media budgets across the Technology
sector.
As the broader technology market recovers, this puts us in a
strong position to build on our existing relationships and further
expand our range of audience-led B2B Digital Services for
technology customers, where we see a significant long-term
opportunity to create value.
In B2B Live & On-Demand Events serving the Technology
market, where we have 15+ major franchises (Black Hat, Enterprise
Connect, LEAP, Game Developer Conference), demand for high quality
face-to-face connections and accredited training is strong and
pacing into 2024 is currently ahead of last year.
In Specialist Market Research (Omdia), the quality of our data
and specialist content is supporting robust subscription renewals,
whilst the recent addition of Canalys has expanded our leadership
across key sub-verticals such as Artificial Intelligence, Cloud,
Cybersecurity and Enterprise IT into the key segments of Channels
and Mobility, adding further depth to our research offering.
Within Specialist Media (40+ brands including Light Reading,
Heavy Reading, AI Business, Information Week) and Specialist Lead
Generation (Industry Dive, NetLine), current end market uncertainty
is creating attractive opportunities to accelerate the expansion of
our Digital Services offering, through the launch of new products
like Intentive (an intent-based lead generation platform) and
through targeted acquisition/combination.
Academic Markets...Consistent Growth
Structural growth in original research and specialist knowledge,
combined with the power of our specialist brands and a growing
range of open research services is underpinning continuing growth
at Taylor & Francis. We remain on track for our GAP 2 target of
3%+ underlying revenue growth in 2023, rising to c.4% in 2024.
This improving growth profile is driven by the combination of
continued strength in traditional Pay-to-Read publishing and
increasing focus and momentum in Pay-to-Publish services.
In Pay-to-Read, our Researcher Services business is delivering
consistent growth, with high renewal rates for peer reviewed
subscription research supported by robust article volumes and the
quality and relevance of our specialist content across 75+ subject
categories.
In Advanced Learning, demand for our specialist reference
content remains strong (8,000+ annual new titles and a backlist of
175,000 titles), benefiting from increased emphasis on a number of
growth subject categories.
In Pay-to-Publish, the market continues to grow healthily and
our investment in operational capacity and processing efficiency is
reducing publication timescales and increasing volume throughput,
enabling us to secure more of this growth. As a result, direct Open
Research volumes have increased significantly in 2023, which
combined with the addition of several new institutional Read and
Publish contracts, is delivering accelerated levels of growth in
overall Pay-to-Publish revenues.
Accelerating Shareholder Returns
We continue to take a disciplined approach to capital
allocation, balancing strong returns to shareholders, organic
investment and targeted acquisitions. To date, in 2023 we have
returned more than GBP650m to shareholders through a mixture of
dividends and share buybacks, with c.GBP1bn of shares bought back
since the divestment of our Intelligence portfolio in 2022 (c.10%
of share capital).
Today we are reporting continuing strong momentum in our
business, with market guidance raised for the full year. Alongside
our improving operating performance, cashflow generation is strong,
with free cash flow of GBP575m+ expected in 2023, and leverage
expected to be c.1.3x at year-end.
This strong cash flow performance and balance sheet strength is
enabling us to extend our share buyback programme to GBP1.15bn.
Dependent on volumes and share price movements, this will see us
acquire shares up to a maximum value of GBP150m between now and our
Full Year Results on 7 March 2024.
Conference Call
A conference call to discuss the Trading Update will be held at
8.30am UK time today, hosted by Group Finance Director, Gareth
Wright , and Director of Investor Relations, Richard Menzies-Gow
.
Dial in details as follows:
Confirmation Code: 8807261
UK: 0800 279 0425 or +44 (0)330 165 4027
US: 800-289-0438 / France: 0805 101 219 / Germany: 0800 180
7799
Enquiries
Stephen A. Carter , Group Chief Executive +44 (0) 20 8052 0400
Gareth Wright, Group Finance Director +44 (0) 20 8052 0400
Richard Menzies-Gow, Director of IR
& Communications +44 (0) 20 8052 2787
+44 (0) 7815 779225 / +44
Simon Duke / Anthony Di Natale - Teneo (0) 7880 715975
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