Financial Highlights

• Profit before tax and goodwill amortisation (and exceptional items in 1999) up 28% to £20.6m

• Turnover up 27% to £147.5m

• Operating margin increased to 15.9% (HY 1999: 14.8%)

• Operating profit before goodwill amortisation (and exceptional items in 1999) up 36% to £23.4m

• Electronic media operating profits up 20%

• Three acquisitions completed for £21m

• Adjusted EPS up 29% to 11.8p

• Interim dividend per share of 2.53p
  

Informa Group's Chairman Peter Rigby commented:

"We are delighted to announce a strong set of interim results for the Group which reflect our strength and continuing progress. A key feature of these results is the continued strong organic growth of the business as we exploit the dynamic synergies between our publishing and conference activities."

Enquiries:

Peter Rigby/David Gilbertson/Jim Wilkinson
Informa Group plc	020 7453 2222
Lydia Stewart/Fiona Piper
The Maitland Consultancy	020 7379 5151

Results

Pre-tax profits before goodwill amortisation and exceptional items for the six months ended 30 June 2000 were £20.6m, some 28% higher than the comparable period last year (1999: £16.1m). Turnover was up 27% at £147.5m (1999: £116.1m). Of the 36% increase in profit before interest, goodwill amortisation and exceptional costs, 21% is organic and 15% relates to acquisitions. This illustrates the strength of our core business which is powered by 1,500 periodicals, 3,500 events a year and our 8 million-strong client database. The first half result was helped by the growth in our largest operating division, Telecoms and Media, which saw operating profit rise by 70%.

The Group's operating margin of 15.9% compares well with the 14.8% achieved in the first half of last year. The margin improvement represents a generally more efficient performance, the increase in electronic publishing activity, the maturing of start-up operations and the continuing exit from marginal and loss making businesses.

Currency factors, particularly the weakness of the euro in the first half of 2000, reduced the year on year increase in operating profit when translated into sterling by some £350,000.

Adjusted earnings per share were 11.80p. This compares with 9.17p in 1999, an increase of 29%. On the strength of these figures we propose that an interim dividend of 2.53p be paid on 13 November to shareholders on the register on 13 October.

Operating Review

Telecoms and Media

Telecoms and Media, our largest division, is now organised as a fully integrated market-facing division with conference activity and electronic and hard copy publishing all grouped under a single management structure. In the first half the benefits of this consolidation began to make themselves felt in new product development and revenue maximisation and we look forward to continuing progress in the remainder of the year.

Underlying operating profit in Telecoms and Media rose by 70% to £10.2m. Most of this growth was organic. Our flagship GSM World Congress, the world's largest mobile phone event, held in February in Cannes attracted a record 5,500 delegates and 9,000 exhibition attendees. This helped further cement our relationship with the GSM association with whom we work closely on a number of initiatives.

The progress towards third generation mobile telephone technology and our pre-eminent position in this marketplace have enabled us to form alliances with a total of 35 industry associations to produce a wide range of new products. This strength was reflected by major successes in new international and regional events relating to the emerging technologies of WAP, GPRS, Mobile Internet and Bluetooth where our second annual event, held in June in Monte Carlo, attracted 1,200 delegates, 30% up on last year.

Maritime and Transport

Our Maritime and Transport business fared less well in the first half with operating profit some 14% below 1999 at £3.3m. One of the chief factors affecting the result is the absence of contribution from the biennial Cruise + Ferry exhibition and conference. The Ro-Ro (roll-on-roll-off shipping) event held in even years is considerably smaller although it enjoyed record receipts in May this year.

Also affecting the results adversely was the absorption into the division of some loss-making automotive titles acquired as part of the portfolio from Pearson last November. The structure and performance of these products have now been addressed and their results are expected to improve in the second half.

Encouragingly, underlying conditions in the core maritime markets are now improving with freight rates for tankers, dry cargo vessels and containerships all rising. Our business tends to be a lagging indicator of the health of this market and the incipient turnaround and growing business confidence in the sectors we serve is reflected by our flagship title Lloyd's List which performed well in the half, showing growth in operating profit of 11% on its 1999 performance.

Other Divisions

Our other divisions performed well in the half year. Profits for Finance and Insurance and Law and Tax grew at 9% and 21% respectively. We continue to enjoy high subscription retention and capture rates across our range of titles especially in insurance. We also held a number of successful conferences in the banking and legal areas, especially a major international event on e-commerce for financial markets. We have also completed a number of contracts to supply our content to third party vendors which will add to future profitability, especially in the legal and financial markets.

Our Commodities and Energy portfolio performed strongly, with operating profit rising 127% year on year, including good organic growth of 32%. The division was boosted by the acquisition of the Heighway commercial fishing titles from Emap late in 1999. Our commercial Fishing Exhibition held in Glasgow in April was highly successful and there is a programme of smaller regional shows planned for the rest of this year and beyond. The German Annual Energy Conference held earlier this year in Berlin drew over 600 delegates and was extremely profitable as was a major study on Natural Gas produced by our Washington-based WPA research arm for the American Gas Association.

We have also seen a very strong result in our Biomedical and Pharmaceutical division where underlying operating profit quadrupled. The withdrawal late last year from unprofitable healthcare related events in the US saw the division bounce back in the first half with much higher profitability and margins on reduced activity. Our annual Drug Discovery Event in Europe in May was a great success. The related market leading US event was held in Boston in August and attracted more than 1,000 delegates.

Acquisitions

We are pleased that the acquisitions made in late 1999 have now been successfully integrated into the Group and are performing well. These acquisitions from Baskerville (Telecoms and Media), EMAP (Transport, Commodities, Finance and Insurance) and Pearson (Telecoms and Media, Biomedical and Pharmaceutical and Automotive) all met our expectations and, in total, contributed to profit in the first half after the deduction of interest costs. We expect a rising contribution from these titles in the second half of the year. Each of these transactions has added respected brands to our product portfolio and we have begun to add value to these incoming products as well.

So far this year we have made three significant acquisitions to a value of £21m. In June we acquired the Los Angeles based BISYS Research Services company, now renamed Informa Research Services. This company, which provides information on lending, borrowing and mortgage rates, complements our existing range of financial information services in the US. The transaction was completed too late in the period to feature significantly in our first half profits.

The purchase from Quantum Publishing of Seafood International magazine fits well with our commercial fishing portfolio.

Since 30 June we have bought a series of titles and exhibitions in the cargo handling, freight and logistics areas from IIR Limited. These specialist market leaders further strengthen our Maritime and Transport portfolio.

We continue to seek and research complementary publishing businesses in our main markets and hope to conclude further acquisitions before the year end.

E-Commerce

Our 100 electronic products accounted for 12% of first half profits, with margins of about 27% compared with 15.9% overall.

In addition to delivering our content electronically, we use the internet heavily as a marketing tool. Most of our products have their own websites, increasingly linked to other relevant sites and appropriate search engines. We have established specialised web-marketing teams, skilled at encouraging people to visit and buy on our web sites. In the first half £11.6m (1999: £4.8m) of product bookings were taken via the internet of which 19% came from customers not on our database and so constituted entirely new revenue.

The internet provides us with opportunity to market more efficiently. Marketing costs currently comprise some 20% of our total costs, largely due to printing and postage but over time we expect the internet to reduce this percentage. In the meantime we will continue to direct consumers towards our websites through the 50 million pieces of direct mail we distribute each year.

We are spending around £3m a year on new electronic development, and £15m in total on electronic media. This year the investment includes web-based fulfillment and content management systems that facilitate delivery of information on line.

The second half will see the launch of lloydslist.com, our maritime subscription based information portal, bringing together daily news content with a range of added value maritime data and analysis in a single integrated service. We have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) to provide maritime information to the PSA's Portnet.com business.

In the US we distribute our financial information via a number of larger internet carriers such as Quicken, Prodigy and Excite. This is providing a significant new revenue stream and we are now looking at a number of similar opportunities in each of our sectors. Our approach to this is generally on a non-exclusive, fee and revenue sharing basis but we would also consider equity agreements in the right circumstances.

Outlook
The current rate of expansion of our information business and the generally positive market conditions in the sectors we serve, mean we are optimistic about the remainder of 2000. We expect to continue our progress of organic growth supplemented by strategic acquisitions and look forward to delivering a satisfactory result for the full year.

Consolidated profit and loss account		2000		1999	1999	1999		1999	1999	1999
For the period ended 30 June 2000		Half year Total		Half year Before Exceptional items	Half year Exceptional items	Half year Total		Before  Exceptional items	Exceptional items	Total
	Notes	unaudited		unaudited	unaudited	unaudited		audited	audited	audited
		£'000		£'000	£'000	£'000		£'000	£'000	£'000
Turnover	1	147,529		116,077	-	116,077		227,773	-	227,773
Operating profit/(loss) before goodwill amortisation	1	23,419		17,190	(4,003)	13,187		35,680	(5,687)	29,993
Goodwill amortisation	1	(2,622)		(1,056)	-	(1,056)		(2,313)	-	(2,313)
Operating profit/(loss)		20,797		16,134	(4,003)	12,131		33,367	(5,687)	27,680
Disposal of subsidiary undertakings and termination of businesses		-		-	(1,891)	(1,891)		-	(2,676)	(2,676)
Loss on disposal of fixed assets		-		-	-	-		-	(740)	(740)
Profit/(loss) before interest		20,797		16,134	(5,894)	10,240		33,367	(9,103)	24,264
Net interest payable		(2,839)		(1,108)	(772)	(1,880)		(2,931)	(772)	(3,703)
Profit/(loss) on ordinary activities before tax		17,958		15,026	(6,666)	8,360		30,436	(9,875)	20,561
Tax on profit/(loss) on ordinary activities		(6,780)		(5,468)	1,500	(3,968)		(10,880)	1,725	(9,155)
Profit/(loss) on ordinary activities after tax		11,178		9,558	(5,166)	4,392		19,556	(8,150)	11,406
Minority interests		(20)		-	-	-		(40)	-	(40)
Profit/(loss) for the financial period		11,178		9,558	(5,166)	4,392		19,516	(8,150)	11,366
Dividends		(2,981)		(2,706)	-	(2,706)		(7,800)	-	(7,800)
Retained profit/(loss) for the financial period		8,177		6,852	(5,166)	1,686		11,716	(8,150)	3,566
Dividends per share		2.53p				2.33p				7.00p
Earnings per share
Earnings per share (basic)	2	9.56p				3.79p				9.78p
Earnings per share (diluted)	2	9.42p				3.73p				9.64p
Adjusted basic earnings per share	2	11.80p				9.17p				18.79p

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