FTSE 100-listed Farmers Weekly publisher Relx reports growing revenue
FTSE 100 information business Relx, formerly known as Reed Elsevier, reported revenue growth of four per cent in 2016 today.
The figures
Relx, which owns legal database LexisNexis and medical journal the Lancet, reported a 2016 turnover of £6.9bn.
Underlying adjusted operating profit, meanwhile, was up six per cent to £2.1bn.
The group increased its full-year dividend by 21 per cent to 35.95p and also announced its second £700m share buyback in two years.
At the time of writing, Relx’s share price on the FTSE 100 was up one per cent to 1,494p.
Read more: Reed Elsevier to rebrand as RELX starting in July
Why it’s interesting
The Anglo-Dutch Relx Group has customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in around 40 countries. It employs approximately 30,000 people, with half its staff based in North America.
In its former guise of Reed Elsevier, Relx was primarily known as a business-to-business (B2B) publisher. Although Relx now calls itself an information and analytics company, its Reed Business Information section still publishes the likes of New Scientist, Estates Gazette and Farmers Weekly.
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What the company said
Chief executive Erik Engstrom said:
We achieved good underlying revenue growth in 2016, and continued to generate underlying operating profit growth ahead of revenue growth, with underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth across all four business areas.
Our strategy is unchanged: Our number one priority remains the organic development of increasingly sophisticated information-based analytics and decision tools that deliver enhanced value to our customers. We believe that the systematic evolution of our business has driven an improvement in our business profile and the quality of our earnings, with more predictable revenues, a higher growth profile, and improving returns.