Relx FY revenues rise, to spend £700m on share buybacks

Relx, formerly known as Reed Elsevier, reported a rise in full-year underlying revenue and operating profit and said it plans to spend £700m on share buybacks.

For the year to December 2016, underlying revenue grew 4% to £6.9bn, reflecting good growth in electronic and face-to-face revenues and the further development of the company’s analytics and decision tools, partially offset by continued print revenue declines.

Adjusted operating profit was up 6% to £2.1bn on an underlying basis, while reported operating profit came in at £1.7bn

The company lifted its full-year dividend by 21% to 35.95p and said it aims to spend £700m on share buybacks this year, in line with what was spent in 2016.

Chief executive officer Erik Engstrom said: "We achieved good underlying revenue growth in 2016, and continued to generate underlying operating profit growth ahead of revenue growth, with underlying revenue and adjusted operating profit growth across all four business areas.

"Our strategy is unchanged: Our number one priority remains the organic development of increasingly sophisticated information-based analytics and decision tools that deliver enhanced value to our customers. We believe that the systematic evolution of our business has driven an improvement in our business profile and the quality of our earnings, with more predictable revenues, a higher growth profile, and improving returns."

Engstrom said he was confident the company will deliver another year of underlying revenue, profit, and earnings growth in 2017.

At 0838 GMT, the shares were down 0.3% to 1,474p.