Informa plc last week released extracts from its Chairman's AGM Statement and Interim Management Statement. Informa owns several research and consulting businesses, including Informa Telecoms and Media, Datamonitor, and Ovum. The company expects to announce interim results for the six months ending 30 June on 28 July.

Non-Executive Chairman Derek Mapp made the following statement:

"Informa had another year of significant achievement in 2007. We achieved 9% pro forma revenue growth, 19% pro forma adjusted operating profit growth and a 23% adjusted operating profit margin. The current year has also started well, we are trading in line with our expectations.

"Our Publishing businesses are benefiting from strong renewal rates, including over 95% in the Academic & Scientific division. In the Professional and Commercial businesses we are also benefiting from higher yields through the increased utility of digital delivery. In particular, our Financial publishing businesses are seeing no adverse impact from wider market conditions. Datamonitor, acquired in July 2007, has started the year well with subscriber numbers continuing to rise. The subscription based publishing model delivers strong cash flows with over 80% of our forecasted 2008 subscription revenue already received.

"Our Events businesses continue to benefit from the focus on “must attend” Large Scale Events which have had a strong start to the year, particularly through taking winning brands into new geographies (geo-cloning). We have seen good growth in our life sciences and telecoms & media events and strong growth in a number of geographies, including the Middle East. This more than offsets some weakness in the tail of our smaller, topical events in the financial sector and in some of the small local language regional events businesses.

"Our US commercial performance improvement (PI) businesses, which account for approximately 4% of group profits, has started the year slowly. Consequently, plans have been implemented to reduce the cost base. Conversely, we have experienced good growth in both our US government and international work. Consequently, whilst we expect a relatively weak first half, the PI performance for the full year is expected to be in line with 2007.

"Earlier this year, we sold Map of Medicine, a small healthcare publishing business for £35 million, a 19.5 times multiple of 2007 reported profit*, generating a profit on disposal of £17.8 million. The proceeds have been utilised to reduce our debt levels. Cash generation and cash conversion across Informa remains strong and in line with prior year’s performance. We remain well within our banking covenants and from our high level of free cash flow will make our first scheduled annual payment under our amortising loan of approximately £47.5m later in the year. We have committed facilities in place through to May 2012.

"Our well balanced portfolio, with a significant and resilient subscription based business at its heart and our broad geographic reach provides considerable protection from any single weaker economy or vertical market. Equally this portfolio enables us to take advantage of growth opportunities quickly in strong markets. We therefore remain confident about the Group’s prospects for the full year.

"We expect to announce our Interim results for the six months ending 30 June on 28 July."

Find additonal information at the Informa investor relations Web site.

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