Informa plunges to £1.1bn annual loss in events shutdown

Informa plunged to a £1.1bn annual loss as revenue slumped and the events and information group wrote down £593m of assets because of Covid-19.

The company swung to a pretax loss of £1.14bn in the year to the end of December from a £319m profit a year earlier as revenue fell 42.5% to £1.66bn. Adjusted operating profit fell to £267.8m, in line with guidance, from £933.1m.

Informa’s events and exhibitions business has been hammered by the Covid-19 crisis, causing the company to cancel gatherings. The company has launched more digital events to partially fill the gap and its subscriptions business has held up duringt the pandemic.

The FTSE 100 company predicted revenue in 2021 would be at least £1.7bn in a "transition year" for business-to-business physical events. Any revenue beyond that figure will depend on the extent of events reopening, it said.

Informa said events continued to reopen in mainland China and it expected physical gathering to gradually reopen in the US and some other markets in the second half of 2021. Subscriptions' growth improved during the first quarter of 2021, it said.

Stephen Carter, Informa's chief executive, said: "This transition year will be defined by continued strength and improving growth in our subscriptions-led businesses, further growth in B2B digital services and a progressive reopening of physical events, led by Mainland China and North America, which will ensure we deliver our revenue commitments for 2021, and remain cashflow positive throughout."