Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury expands into the Middle East
www.daylife.co.uk
Publishing group Bloomsbury is expanding into Qatar in £7.55m six-year deal that will reduce its reliance on revenues from the Harry Potter series.
The London-based company, which took over fashion publisher Berg last month, has agreed to launch its first overseas operation outside the UK and US in order to “promote reading culture in the Middle East”.
The Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing will sell books in both Arabic and English focusing on fiction and non-fiction for adults, educational books for schools, university text books, Arabic literature and reference books.
The new publishing arm will be owned by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community, with the books published around the world through Bloomsbury’s distribution network.
Bloomsbury’s share price rose 1.5 – or 1pc – to 173.5p following the trading update predicting full-year profits “in line with management expectations”
