Informa is a professional information provider with 100 offices in 25 countries. The company focuses on academic and professional publishing as well as informational events.
The group’s five segments are Academic Publishing, Business Intelligence, Global Events, Knowledge and Networking and Global Support. The results surveyed for this ranking include the academic and business divisions, while the event organization and conference businesses are excluded.
Informa's Academic Publishing Division produces peer reviewed books and journals for upper level university students, researchers and academic institutions worldwide. Subject areas include Humanities & Social Sciences and Science, Technology & Medicine, with a list of more than 120,000 books and 2,400 journals. The division operates as the Taylor & Francis Group and has five main imprints: Taylor & Francis, Routledge, CRC Press, Garland Science and Cogent OA.
The Business Intelligence division provides specialist data-driven intelligence and insight to professionals in niche communities. It has over 100 digital subscription products including Lloyd’s List, Citeline, Scrip and Ovum, catering to five vertical markets: Agribusiness, Finance, Maritime, Pharma, and Telecoms, Media & Technology.
Analysis & Key Developments
Financial
Informa’s Group revenue for fiscal 2015 increased by 6.6%, from 1.14 billion GBP in 2014 to 1.21 billion GBP, with an organic growth of 1.0% (up from the 2014 figure of 0.7%). Adjusted operating profit increased by 9.5% to 366 million GBP, from 334 million GBP in 2014.
In 2015, the Academic Publishing division reported consistent growth in revenue and profit, with revenues of 447 million GBP and organic revenue growth of 1.6%. The organic growth was marginally lower than in 2014 due to some short-term volatility in book sales, softness in US Medical Books, and the wider textbook market.
In 2015, Business Intelligence contributed 23% of the Informa’s Group revenue. The division’s organic growth decreased in 2015 by 1.9% to 277 million GBP, compared to 282 million GBP in 2014. Still, the division was able to reduce its loss of 8.5% in 2014 quarter by quarter to 1.9% in 2015. The growth was mainly attributed to the division’s recognition of the sales operation and an increased customer focus.
Internal Organization
Informa continued to stay on track with the new management strategy that was implemented in 2014. “The statutory results for the 12 months to December 31, 2015 reflect the benefits of our strategy over the past two years,” said Chairman Derek Mapp, “during which Informa moved from a period of Measured Change and launched the 2014–2017 Growth Acceleration Plan.”
International
Informa’s largest revenue share is in the United States, at 42%. Eighteen percent of revenues come from the Middle East and Africa and 12% from UK and Continental Europe, with the remaining 28% from the rest of the world.
Digital
In 2015, e-books represented 24% of Informa’s book publishing revenue, an increase of two percentage points from 2014. The company cited the continued popularity of the print format for education and academia. In contrast, all of the publisher’s journals are distributed digitally, in order to best serve the nature and use of peer reviewed research and “allow users to perform a granular search across a discipline or specific subject and access content by citation or reference,“ according to the annual report.
In 2015 all journals and new books were available as e-books, as well as more than 60% or 75,000 titles of the backlist.
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