The Bookseller reports that Informa, parent of Taylor & Francis, made 33.4m poiunds from the sale of Blackwell Publishing to John Wiley. The figure is revealed in Informa’s interim results, which showed that the business improved its adjusted profit by 14% to 95.6m pounds despite flat sales of 532.5m pounds. Informa’s total publishing sales, at 205.5m pounds accounted for 39% of the first half year revenues. On a pro forma basis this represented an increase of 6%. Informa said that more than half of the revenue, 62%, was subscription based.
David Gilbertson, chief executive, said that all three divisions (Academic & Scientific, Professional and Commercial) translated good pro forma revenue growth into even greater adjusted operating profit increases. The Academic & Scientific division had resilient pro forma revenue growth of 7%, translating into pro forma adjusted operating profit growth of 27%.