For U.K. scientific and academic publisher Taylor &Francis, 1998 was a momentous year. The company celebrated 200 years of publishing, reorganized its U.S. offices and warehousing, floated the company on the London stock market and bought the far larger publisher Routledge. Now it has to balance the books.
Revenues for 1998 were up 34% to £40.2 million, with book sales accounting for 54%. Operating profits rose by 24% to £8.5 million, but exceptional items and goodwill amortization of £1.73 million reduced this to £6.8 million and kept pretax profits at a stationary £7.2 million. Chief executive Anthony Selvey called the results "a strong performance against a background of considerable corporate activity and tremendous change."
The task immediately facing T&F is to save in excess of £2 million in 1999. Measures taken so far include merging T&F and Routledge, combining the two London offices on one premises and reorganizing the distribution and warehousing; such changes will make up to a hundred staff redundant. This year the company, which currently has nine imprints, plans to publish 457 journals and more than 1500 new book titles.
North America is a particularly important market, with sales of £19.64 million against £7.2 million in the U.K. The purchase of a small distribution company in Singapore will be used for further expansion into the East Asian market. Selvey stressed that although he is in the market for more acquisitions, T&F will stay in the areas in which it has established its expertise.
