Informa plc last week announced preliminary results for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007. The company reports another year of significant achievement in 2007: 9 percent pro forma revenue growth, 19 percent pro forma adjusted operating profit growth, and a 23 percent adjusted operating profit margin. The results release includes highlights of ITM and Datamonitor's financial and business performance.

Read the full release at the company website. Highlights include:

Chairman’s and Chief Executive’s Statement

"All three of our business streams, publishing, events and performance improvement, traded strongly. All geographies and market sectors performed well. As we connect more of our brands, to more of our media formats to more of our geographies, we are growing a dynamic network of business units that enables us to benefit from our size, while keeping the passion and speed of our entrepreneurial roots.

"We have transformed Informa in recent years. We have built a business based on recurring revenue streams which provides strong defensive qualities, but not at the expense of continuing good growth.

"We are of course aware of the current uncertainty in the financial markets, but at this point the board sees no signs in our trading to alter its expectations that Informa will deliver another strong performance in 2008. Our confidence in the future of the business is reflected by a 39% increase in the dividend over 2006."

Financial Highlights

• Revenue £1.13 billion: 9% pro forma growth
• Adjusted operating profit £261.0m: 19% pro forma growth
• Adjusted operating margin rises above 23%
• Strong trading across all three divisions (Academic & Scientific, Professional and Commercial) and all three business streams (Publishing, Performance Improvement and Events)
• Datamonitor delivers 22% pro forma revenue growth for the full year
• Adjusted cash conversion 110% of adjusted operating profit
• Total dividend increases 39%
• Confident of 2008 outlook

Business Highlights

• Academic and Scientific division grows adjusted operating profit by 25% to achieve a 29% margin; Strong yield increases and drop through from electronic delivery
• Professional division benefits from Performance Improvement extending global reach; Non-US revenues increase by 29%
• Commercial division growth fuelled by extension of Large Scale Events portfolio and 38% increase in Dubai revenues

Datamonitor Highlights

For the second half of 2007 Datamonitor achieved a strong adjusted operating profit margin of 33% compared to 22% in the first half of the year. The strong second half is the result of a combination of impressive drop through and cost savings from the Informa integration.

Datamonitor continues to execute on its strategy to achieve the dual objective of increasing the total number of subscribers whilst at the same time driving up the number of subscribers spending in the top quadrant of customer yields.

Its subscriptions renew annually at 90%, constituting a powerful recurring revenue stream. But Datamonitor has high growth too. It achieved a 22% pro forma revenue increase and a pro forma adjusted operating profit rise of 59% for the full year on the same period a year earlier. Datamonitor’s internet-delivered knowledge centres of international data in the healthcare, telecoms, finance, automotive, energy and retail sectors are all now fully XML coded, enabling users to interrogate its information intuitively to obtain their own uniquely customised solutions.

At the end of 2007, Datamonitor had 3,458 subscribers compared with 2,861 at the date of its purchase (July 2007). In addition Datamonitor had another 3,000+ report buyers. Datamonitor’s sales model is to move these single buyers up the value chain to become subscribers. Subscribers spending over £20,000 grew by 20% in 2007 on a full year pro forma basis. Overall renewals were 90%, while clients spending over £20,000 had a 100% retention rate.

The integration of Datamonitor is progressing to plan and the Group expects to realise annualised cost savings of £3m in line with the acquisition model and expects that the post-tax return on invested capital will exceed Informa's cost of capital in the second full year of ownership.

Informa Telecoms and Media (ITM)

Informa Telecoms & Media (ITM) as a market facing unit combines publishing and events revenues. Following the Datamonitor acquisition it now includes the Datamonitor Ovum branded Knowledge Centre. In 2007 ITM contributed 19% of revenue and 29% of adjusted operating profit of the division, and 6.6% and 8.9% respectively of Informa’s total revenue and adjusted operating profit. In 2007 ITM grew reported revenue by 14% and adjusted operating profit by 44% with the loss of revenue from the change in the relationship with the telecoms trade association over the 3GSM World Congress offset by both a rigorous focus on cost control and the benefit of the Datamonitor acquisition.

ITM grew pro forma revenue by 17% and pro forma adjusted operating profit by 23% increasing an already strong adjusted operating margin by over six percentage points to a subscription quality of earnings level of 31%.

ITM’s wholly owned GSM world series, branded as the Com series of events is growing strongly and the training business continues to roll out its successful MiniMBA series as well as to make strong inroads into the corporate training market. In Asia, ITM’s focus on growing its largest events, has also produced good adjusted operating profit growth.

Get the complete release

Visit the Informa website for the complete financial results release.

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