Informa upbeat for full year on steady growth
PUBLISHER and events group Informa said yesterday that it is confident it can meet full year expectations on the back of a strong third quarter.
The group reported organic growth of 1.1 per cent in the nine months to 30 September as it updated the market yesterday, with its academic information division seeing revenue growth of four per cent.
Events growth was lower than expected at 1.3 per cent due to missed revenues from Formobile, the Brazilian biennial exhibition which was not held this year.
“It has been a solid quarter for the group with good performances in each division ensuring positive organic growth across the first nine months of the year, despite the absence of our Brazilian exhibition,” said chief executive Peter Rigby. “Overall, we remain confident of meeting expectations for the full year. We completed the sale of our five Corporate Training businesses at the end of September, leaving the Group more focused and less volatile. The sale further strengthens our balance sheet and we continue to look for attractive opportunities to deploy our capital efficiently, in line with our strategy,” added Rigby.
The company said that its cash performance remained on track with the sale of its corporate training businesses generating proceeds of $100m, which it had used to pay off debt.
Informa’s share price rose 2.12 per cent on the news to close at 554p.