15 March 2022
2021 Financial Highlights
- Higher Revenues: Statutory revenue growth of 8.3% and underlying growth1 of 6.1%, delivering Group revenues of £1,798.7m (2020 £1,660.8m), reflecting strength in Subscriptions, growth in Digital Services and the progressive return of Live and On-Demand B2B Events;
- Growth in Adjusted Profit: Adjusted Operating Profit1 of £388.4m (2020: £266.6m), driven by higher revenues and effective cost-management;
- Improving Statutory Performance: Reduction in COVID-related exceptional costs and lower intangible amortisation and impairments, delivers statutory operating profit of £93.8m compared with a loss of £881.6m in 2020;
- Strong Free Cash Flow: Higher adjusted operating profit, strong cash conversion and improving forward bookings for B2B Events, delivers Free Cash Flow1 of £438.7m, more than £500m better than the £153.9m outflow reported in 2020;
- Robust Balance Sheet: Free Cash Flow growth, combined with currency effects, drives reduction in Net Debt to £1,434.6m (2020: £2,029.6m), in advance of GAP II divestments. Long-term, covenant-free Group financing provides resilience and flexibility.
and for 2022:
- Consistent and improving growth at Taylor & Francis: Further expansion in Open Research services, a robust performance in Pay to Read Subscriptions and continuing eBooks momentum within Advanced Learning is delivering steady improvement in underlying revenue growth
Academic Markets & Knowledge Services
At Taylor & Francis, our GAP II plan forms part of our longer-term modernisation programme that began in 2014. Since then, we have progressively established a digital-first culture and built digital infrastructure to deliver rapid product development and multi-format capabilities. This has enabled us to expand in the fast-growing Open Research market, developing a growing range of flexible, Pay to Publish services that complement and enhance the ongoing strength and resilience of our traditional Pay to Read products.
This strategy has expanded our addressable market from a historical focus on University Library budgets to global research and development funding. Through GAP II, we are investing to further strengthen our digital service offering and this combination of a broader customer base and expanded range of services gives us confidence we can continue accelerating growth to 4%+ over the course of the GAP II period.
In 2022, we are targeting consistent and improving underlying growth through robust performances in Pay to Read Subscriptions and Advanced Learning, and further double-digit growth in Pay to Publish services. On the latter, our focus is on further improving our ability to track funding flows to enhance our marketing effectiveness, whilst also continuing to improve our speed to market and validation quality for Open Research publications.
In Pay to Read, subscription renewals remain robust, buoyed by strong submission volumes and ongoing demand for authenticated and trusted specialist research. In Advanced Learning, we continue to expand our eBooks list and improve the discoverability of our content, driving overall usage, underpinning pricing and driving further customer demand for digital access.
Full results here