An increase in the number of fairs it held and cost cuts gave Reed Exhibitions an adjusted operating profit of £10 billion in 2021 compared to a loss of £164 million in 2020, when the pandemic decimated Reed’s conference business. Revenue in the year jumped 48%, to £534 million, as the company was able to hold 269 in-person fairs, compared to 169 fairs in 2020. In 2019, revenue at Reed Exhibitions was £1.27 billion and the company had profits of £331 million.
According to Reed Exhibitions parent company the RELX Group, the exhibition division reopened fairs “across geographies” and operated them according to local government policies. An increase in digital initiatives resulted in electronic revenue accounting for 11% (about £58 million) of total exhibition sales.
RELX had little to say about its expectations for how the exhibition division will perform in 2022. The company did say it expects to see “strong underlying growth,” and anticipates that profits will benefit from previous cost cuts.
Reed Exhibitions is the parent company of the London Book Fair, and had operated BookExpo and BookCon before closing those shows in 2021. This year’s London Book Fair is set to be held April 5-7 at Olympia Hall, and organizers are expecting to hold an in-person fair. In 2020, LBF was one of the first industry events to be canceled because of the pandemic, and last year, it held an online fair.
Reed Exhibitions accounted for only 7% of RELX’s revenue last year. Total RELX sales were £7.24 billion, an increase of 2% over 2020 (a gain of 7% when eliminating currency fluctuations and other one-time items). Pre-tax profits rose 2%, to £1.8 billion. Electronic revenue accounted for 86% of sales. The science/technical/medical segment remained RELX’s largest group, with sales of £2.65 billion (88% electronic), followed by the risk division at £2.47 billion (99% electronic), and legal, which had revenue of £1.59 billion (87% electronic).
