Lockdown books binge lifts Bloomsbury shares
PROFITS at Bloomsbury will smash City expectations after reading provided a ‘ray of sunshine’ in the third lockdown.
Bookworm Britons snapped up the new Sarah Maas novel, A Court of Silver Flames, and Anna North’s Outlawed – as well as old favourites such as the Dishoom cook book and the publisher’s eternal cash cow Harry Potter.
On the back of an unexpected sales surge in February – the final month of its financial year – Bloomsbury upgraded its forecasts for the second time in as many months. Turnover will be higher than the £171m it previously predicted, while profits will be ‘significantly’ ahead of the £14.8m it pinpointed in January.
Nigel Newton, the chief executive, admitted it is not clear whether the reading renaissance will continue once restrictions lift.
But the company could take encouragement from the sales of new books compared with a boom in demand for long novels such as Middlemarch and War and Peace last year. Bloomsbury has paid back £63,000 of furlough funds to the Government, and repaid temporary salary reductions for staff.
And its online academic platform has performed well as teaching at schools and universities has stayed remote. Investors celebrated the book binge and its shares rose 11.2pc, or 30p, to 298p.
An upgrade to forecasts also helped Halma trade higher. The smoke detector and safety equipment maker now expects profits for 2020/21 to be in line with the previous year’s £267m. Shareholders had been braced for a 5pc fall.
In a trading update, Halma said it was performing well in Asia – driven by demand from China. But its medical arm has been hit by the disruption to elective surgery caused by the pandemic. Shares rose 2.3pc, or 54p, to 2359p.
It was FTSE 250-listed Softcat’s profit news that really wowed the market, however. The IT reseller, which sells hardware and software systems to small businesses, jumped 14.5pc, or 226p, to 1785p, after a 10pc rise in profits in the six months to the end of January on the back of cost-cutting.
The wider FTSE 250 finished the day 0.3pc higher, up 70.78 points, to 21,402.54, while the FTSE 100 rose 0.2pc, or 13.70 points, to 6712.89, as bargain hunters swooped on battered travel and leisure stocks.
Housebuilders swung into the red, however, as UK house price growth slowed in January compared with the previous month.
Taylor Wimpey sank 3.1pc, or 5.7p, to 178.15p, Barratt Developments by 1.7pc, or 13.4p, to 764.6p, and Persimmon by 1.1pc, or 32p, to 2945p. Average prices rose by 7.5pc in the year to January, according to the Office for National Statistics, compared with 8pc in December. This was put down to the third lockdown and uncertainty about the length of the stamp duty holiday.
Bellway also lost ground – falling 2.3pc, or 79p, to 3413p – despite reinstating its dividend at 35p per share after it reported record halfyear results. Revenues rose by almost 12pc to £1.7bn as it completed the sale of 5,656 homes.
Travis Perkins (up 1pc, or 15p, to 1600p) has taken another step towards separating Wickes from the wider business.
The firm has now submitted key documents to the Financial Conduct Authority, although it did not provide a more detailed timeline for when it plans to list the DIY chain on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.
Shares in Harvester and Toby Carvery-owner Mitchells & Butlers rose 2.5pc, or 8p, to 324.5p as it shrugged off an investor revolt at the company’s annual meeting after at least 23pc of votes were cast against the re- election of five directors.