In a capital markets day announcement Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive, Informa PLC, said:
”Today we are announcing Informa’s growth and acceleration plan for the next three years, which commits the Group to faster growth and increased investment in the two markets where we have leading brands and leadership positions of scale: Academic Markets and B2B Markets.” He added: ”As part of this investment and growth strategy we are starting a process to divest our portfolio of high quality, high performing brands in Informa Intelligence, thereby unlocking value and providing the funds to further strengthen our position in our two growth markets.” He concluded: “By concentrating on these growth markets, we will expand our Academic and Events businesses at pace through focused investment, accelerated digital growth and targeted acquisitions.”
2021-2024 GAP II
Informa is announcing a three-year programme with the ambition to create a more focused, higher growth business. Our ambition is to return Group revenues above 2019 levels (rebased for divestments) by the end of GAP II in 2024, whilst returning significant capital to shareholders in 2022.
The GAP II programme will prioritise the following six areas:
1. Portfolio Focus: Informa will focus and accelerate its investment and efforts on the two markets where it has leadership positions of scale and which offer attractive opportunities for further growth and expansion: Academic Markets & Knowledge Services (Taylor & Francis) and B2B Markets & Digital Services (Informa Markets, Informa Connect, Informa Tech). The Group plans to divest Informa Intelligence which, although smaller in the context of the Group, has been transformed into a high-quality, high-performing and high-value portfolio of brands through targeted GAP I investment. Divestment will unlock the full extent of this value, providing funds to accelerate investment and expansion in our two businesses with scale leadership positions.
2. Digital and Data: Our strategy of Market Specialisation continues to build depth in our chosen specialist markets and subject categories.
In Academic Markets, we will further expand our position in Open Research, strengthening our service offering and extending our customer reach to double underlying growth to 4%+ by 2024. In B2B Markets, we will accelerate growth through the continued return of B2B Events and further expansion in B2B Market Access, including accelerating the rollout of Smart Events services, expanding in Audience Development (content-led lead generation programs, increasingly
differentiated by data segmentation) and building a position in B2B Digital Demand Generation (data analytics that provide intent-based, qualified B2B buyers and sales prospects). This range of Digital Services expands our addressable market, providing access to broader customer budgets and additional opportunities for growth. Data lies at the heart of all these GAP II growth plans andis underpinned through our continued investment in our proprietary B2B customer data and analytics engine, IIRIS.
For the full press release see here
What Informa Intelligence contains see here