Bloomsbury Chair to retire; Harry potter publisher sees upbeat year

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(Reuters) -Bloomsbury Publishing’s shares fell 8.3% on Thursday after Chair Richard Lambert announced his retirement after seven years in the role, while the Harry Potter publisher also forecast its current year to be slightly ahead of market view.

Lambert, 79, a seasoned journalist and former Chair of the British Museum, will be succeeded by John Bason, currently an independent non-executive director on the Bloomsbury board.

Bloomsbury said results for fiscal 2025 would be slightly above expectations, with a revenue of 283.6 million pounds ($360.85 million) and profit before taxation and highlighted items of 35.4 million pounds.

For the year ended Feb 29, the company reported annual profit before taxation and highlighted items of 48.7 million pounds on revenues of 342.7 million pounds, driven by robust demand for fantasy fiction titles, particularly by author Sarah J Maas.

Bloomsbury, best known for picking up J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series in 1997 after it was rejected by a dozen other publishers, said recent strong performance has been principally driven by the increasing demand for fantasy fiction.

Fantasy fiction has become a fan favourite niche of teens and adults alike, with a wide audience reach driven by word-of-mouth recommendations on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

While there will be no new title by Maas in the next fiscal year, analysts at Investec said they believe in longer-term Bloomsbury prospects as “she (Maas) is increasingly becoming a sustainable, global source of demand”.

The company’s board also recommended a final dividend of 10.99 pence per share, hiking full-year dividend to 14.69 pence per share, an increase of 25% year on year.

Shares were down to 550 pence at 8:46 GMT, among top losers across London stocks.

($1 = 0.7859 pounds)

(Reporting by Yamini Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Janane Venkatraman)