Euromoney sees record profit as demand recovers

British financial information group Euromoney said it expected to make record pretax profit this financial year after advertising and delegate numbers to its events recovered in August and September.

The first of the professional publishing and events groups to report this quarter, Euromoney said growth in subscription revenues had also picked up and it expected headline sales growth of 3 percent for the year to end-September.

Euromoney, a unit of British newspaper group Daily Mail & General Trust, sounded more upbeat on Friday than bigger rivals Reed Elsevier and UBM have recently, perhaps signalling higher growth for the sector.

Professional publishers have done better than consumer media during the recession because they have stable subscription revenues to rely on and are less exposed to advertising, but tend to be slower to respond to any pickup in the wider economy.

Euromoney said it expected to make adjusted pretax profit of at least 84 million pounds ($132 million) this year, up from 63 million pounds last year.

It said its net debt should be no more than 140 million pounds by Sept. 30, down from 178 million at March 31.

Euromoney will report its full-year financial results on Nov. 11.