10 February 2022
2021 Highlights
- Revenue £7,244m (£7,110m), underlying growth +7%
- Adjusted operating profit £2,210m (£2,076m), underlying growth +13%
- Adjusted profit before tax £2,077m (£1,916m), constant currency growth +15%
- Reported operating profit £1,884m (£1,525m)
- Reported profit before tax £1,797m (£1,483m)
- Adjusted EPS 87.6p (80.1p), constant currency growth +17%
- Reported EPS 76.3p (63.5p)
- Net debt/EBITDA 2.4x; adjusted cash flow conversion 101%
- Proposed full year dividend 49.8p (47.0p) +6%
2022 Outlook
Following the improved performance in 2021 across the company, we expect 2022 full year underlying growth rates in revenue and adjusted operating profit, as well as constant currency growth in adjusted earnings per share, to remain above historical trends.
We are announcing our intention to deploy a total of £500m on share buybacks in 2022.
Operating and financial review: Scientific, Technical & Medical
Improved underlying revenue growth driven by further development of datasets and analytics.
Underlying revenue growth was +3%, driven by continued good growth in electronic revenue, which represents
88% of divisional revenue. Print revenue declines moderated after the prior year’s unusually steep declines.
Underlying adjusted operating profit growth was +3%, in line with underlying revenue growth. Adjusted operating
margin was largely unchanged with the positive impact from currency movements more than offset by portfolio
effects.
In Primary Research growth was driven by broader content sets, increasing sophistication of analytics, and evolving
technology platforms. Article submissions remained at last year’s elevated levels. The number of articles published
grew strongly, with continued growth in subscription articles and particularly strong growth in open access articles,
leading to further market share gains in both payment models.
In Databases & Tools and Electronic Reference, representing over a third of divisional revenue, strong growth was
driven by content development and enhanced machine learning and natural language processing‐based
functionality. Strong growth continued in medical education and clinical solutions across reference and decision
support tools.
2022 outlook: Based on the improved performance in 2021, we expect underlying revenue growth to remain above
historical trends, with underlying adjusted operating profit growth slightly exceeding underlying revenue growth.