| Wolters Kluwer today indicated that it has realized an increase of approximately 5% in the 2001 ordinary net profit before amortization of intangibles in constant currency terms, consistent with the outlook given by management last March. Total sales increased by more than 4% and reached a level of EUR 3.8 billion, based on 2% organic growth as well as a positive contribution from acquisitions (net of divestments) and - to a modest extent - currencies. Despite stepping up additional Internet spending to a level of approximately EUR 100 million, the company's EBITA margin for 2001 ended at a healthy 21%. |
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Sales within the Legal, Tax & Business clusters increased by more than 6% overall and the organic growth rate continued in line with the first half-year (2%). The North American operations performed most strongly and acquisitions contributed well to the overall growth rate.
In North America good progress was made with the development of new Internet products. Legal, Tax & Business North America also outlined the areas of banking, securities and insurance as new core markets, with growth to be spearheaded by our operating company Bankers Systems Inc., including CBF Systems. In Legal, Tax & Business Europe work has begun on the implementation of the strategy announced in August to reorganize, integrate and streamline our European businesses and customer offerings.
Although most of our Legal, Tax & Business activities are not very sensitive to economic developments, some impact was felt in the second half in the areas of advertising (e.g. ten Hagen & Stam, our Dutch trade journal publisher), and a number of transaction-based activities such as CCH Legal Information Services (premier provider of corporate and legal compliance services) and Teleroute (Europe's leading online freight exchange system).
Throughout the year, the company completed a large number of strategic acquisitions. Good examples of these acquisitions in our core business areas are Loislaw (online provider for legal research on a subscription basis, USA) in legal, OSRA (major provider of tax compliance in Italy) in tax & accounting and CBF Systems (market leader in the American information market for the mortgage industry) in the important growth market of banking. |
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| International Health & Science |
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| Sales of the International Health & Science cluster were up 13% overall. Underlying growth showed an improvement in the second half of the year. The company completed a number of important strategic acquisitions, such as SilverPlatter (medical and scientific databases, June 2001) and Medi-Span (electronic drug data, December 2001), reflecting our ambition to be the leading provider of content-based productivity tools for key sectors of the health, pharmaceutical and scientific markets. In particular good performance was reported in the area of (online) scientific/medical research tools (Ovid). The process of unifying the cluster's IT infrastructure into one common platform was initiated, as management introduced greater focus to these activities |
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| Underlying sales of the Education cluster were flat, partly due to a lack of new curriculum activity in all the countries in which we operate. The overall sales level declined by 3% due to the divestment of the dictionary publisher (Norsteds Ordbok, Sweden) in 2000 and a negative currency impact. The first positive results of the reorganization in Sweden became visible, as market share increased. |
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The divestment of the Professional Training companies has nearly been completed. All assets have now been sold with the exception of the Dutch operating company ISBW, which the company plans to sell during 2002. The book profits realized on these disposals are accounted for under results on divestments and are not included in the ordinary net income before amortization of intangibles.
Please note that this press release is based on preliminary figures and data for the full year 2001. The final and audited financial results for the year 2001, including the profit and loss account, balance sheet and other financial details will be released on March 19, 2002 before trading.
Note for the editor:
Wolters Kluwer is a multinational information services company with annual sales of approximately EUR 3.7 billion, employing approximately 19,000 people in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. The company's core activities are Legal, Tax & Business, International Health & Science, and Education. The Wolters Kluwer shares are quoted on the Euronext Amsterdam. The financial results for the year 2001 will be announced on March 19, 2002.
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