Bloomsbury sales boosted by Harry Potter books

Bloomsbury Publishing, the publisher of the Harry Potter books increased first-half revenues by 36.5% on the back of bestselling titles such as David Dimbleby’s “How We Built Britain” and the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” into export markets.

However, first-half revenues did not include British orders of the final Harry Potter book which was released on July 21 and became the fastest selling book ever – over 11 million copies were sold during the first 24 hours in 3 markets alone.

Chairman Nigel Newton commented that this was a good set of results which puts them back on target after a profit warning in 2006. The company also said it was all set to go for the remainder of 2007 and its second-half publishing programme could exceed current trading prospects.

First-half pretax profit fell 8.5% to £3.86 million as a result of lower interest received in the period and the group reported a decline in pretax profit to £5.2 million in 2006 from £20.1 million 12 months ago.

Altium analysts commented that the results show positive signs of improvement after the problems of the second half of the financial year 2006.

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