RELX Group (Reed Elsevier)

Company Information & Key Figures

About

Relx Group is a provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries. It is owned by two parent companies: Reed Elsevier PLC is the London Stock Exchange listed vehicle for holding shares in RELX Group. Shareholders in Reed Elsevier PLC own a 52.9% economic interest in the Group. Reed Elsevier NV is the Amsterdam Stock Exchange listed vehicle for holding shares in RELX Group. External shareholders in Reed Elsevier NV own a 47.1% economic interest in the Group.

Relx Group, formerly Reed Elsevier, is an UK registered media company and a global provider of scientific, technical, and medical information products and services. In 2017, the STM arm of Elsevier published 430,000 new research articles in more than 2,500 journals. Elsevier’s journals are primarily published and delivered through the ScienceDirect platform, the world’s largest database of scientific and medical research according to company information, hosting over 15m pieces of content, and 38,000 e-books. (AR 2017)

As CEO Erik Engstrom outlines the company’s projected perspective: „We are systematically migrating all of our information solutions across RELX Group towards higher value-add decision tools, adding broader datasets, embedding more sophisticated analytics and leveraging more powerful technology, primarily through organic development.

We are transforming our core business, building out new products and expanding into higher growth adjacencies and geographies. We are supplementing this organic development with selective acquisitions of targeted data sets and analytics, and assets in high-growth markets that support our organic growth strategies, and are natural additions to our existing businesses. By focusing on evolving the fundamentals of our business we believe that, over time, we are improving our business profile and the quality of our earnings.“ (AR 2017)

Analysis & Key Developments

Financial

RELX Group’s reported revenue was up 7% and totaled at 7,355mGBP in 2017 (2016: 6,895mGBP). „The increase in revenue reflects good growth in electronic and face-to-face revenues, partially offset by continued print revenue declines.“ Moreover, the group’s revenues combined by 34% of the Scientific, Technical & Medical; 28% by Risk & Business Analytics (NOT included in this Ranking); 23% by Legal and 15% by Exhibitions (NOT included in this Ranking). Besides, adjusted operating profit was 2,284mGBP (2016: 2,114mGBP), up 8%, „reflecting the benefit of tight cost control across the Group“. Chief executive Erik Engstrom noted: „We achieved good underlying revenue growth in 2017, and continued to generate underlying adjusted operating profit growth ahead of revenue growth. The underlying growth rate reflects good growth in electronic and face-to-face revenues (89% of the total), and the further development of our analytics and decision tools.“ (AR 2017)

• During 2017 the STM segment achieved revenues of 2,478mGBP compared to 2,320mGBP in 2016. Underlying adjusted operating profit generated growth of 3% and accounted for 913mGBP in 2017 (2016: 853mGBP). 42% of revenue by geographical market was derived from North America, 25% from Europe and the remaining 33% from the rest of the world. Print books, saw „continued sales declines with return rates at historical levels“, however, printed goods generated 19% of the segments revenue and electronic sales 81%. (AR 2017)
• The Legal segment closed the fiscal year 2017 at 1,692mGBP, compared with 1,622mGBP in 2016. During the year 77% of revenue came from subscription sales and 23% from transactional sales. Besides, underlying adjusted operating profit growth was +11%. Moreover, electronic revenues saw continued growth, partially offset by print declines. (AR 2017)

Internal organization

• In July 2017, RELX Group announced the appointment of Suzanne Wood as a Non-executive Director of RELX NV and RELX PLC. She was also be appointed a Non-executive Director of RELX Group plc.. (PR 27.07.2017)

Acquisition

The main acquisition of the RELX group’s STM and Legal segments during 2017 were:

• In August 2017, Elsevier acquired bepress, a California-based business that helps academic libraries showcase and share their institutions’ research. (PR 02.08.2017)
• In June 2017, LexisNexis Legal & Professional announced the acquisition of Ravel Law, a legal research, analytics and visualization platform. (PR 08.06.2017)
• In February 2017, Elsevier announced the acquisition of Plum Analytics; a company which gathers metrics about research from dozens of scholarly sources, media channels and social media, providing a timely, broad and complete measurement of scholarly impact; from EBSCO Information Services. (PR 02.02.2017)

International

The Group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. In 2017 the RELX Group’s revenue by geographical market combined 4,081mGBP from North America (2016: 3,778mGBP), 522mGBP from the UK (2016: 504mGBP), 92mGBP from the Netherlands (2016: 118mGBP), 1,081mGBP from the rest of Europe (2016: 1,091mGBP) as well as 1,579mGBP from the rest of the world (2016: 1,404mGBP). (AR 2017)

Digital

During 2017 the groups revenue by format included 5,399mGBP from electronic formats (2016: 4,954mGBP), 834mGBP by printed goods (2016: 875mGBP) and 1,122mGBP from Face-to-face (2016: 1,066mGBP). (AR 2017)