By Aby Jose Koilparambil
(Reuters) - Informa Plc (LON:INF) on Thursday raised its annual profit and revenue outlook, helped mainly by a robust performance in its academic and B2B businesses, sending shares in the British events organiser to a more than three-year high.
The events industry has been recovering firmly from a pandemic-driven slump that forced the cancellation of hundreds of shows and conferences amid lockdowns and travel restrictions.
"Our strong underlying performance and good forward visibility on both volumes and value gives us confidence in a strong outcome in 2023 and continuing momentum into 2024," the company said in a statement.
CEO Stephen Carter said the group would focus on sector-specific acquisitions and would expand its technology franchise.
Informa said the two B2B businesses it acquired recently - Tarsus and Winsight - have traded robustly.
Carter said China, one of Informa's key markets, is returning "extremely strongly" after the lifting of pandemic restrictions there in March.
The London-listed group said it now expects a 10% increase in its adjusted operating profit for the year ending Dec. 31 to between 750 million pounds and 790 million pounds ($948.8 million- $999.4 million).
Revenue is expected at between 2.95 billion pounds and 3.05 billion pounds, 7% higher than the previous forecast and ahead of the 2.89 billion pounds it reported in fiscal 2019, before the pandemic.
Shares in the FTSE 100 firm climbed as much as 4.3% to 734.8 pence, their highest level since Feb. 26, 2020.
($1 = 0.7905 pounds)