Publishers Informa and Taylor & Francis have unveiled a well-received £1.1 billion merger to drive growth by exploiting their niche markets rather than cutting costs.
Informa, which owns Lloyd's List, the world's oldest daily newspaper, said in a statement the enlarged company, T&F Informa, would tap "cross-over demand for information in the academic, scientific, professional and commercial communities".
Shareholders in T&F, owner of International Who's Who, will get 17 new Informa shares for every 10 T&F shares. That values T&F shares at 630.7 pence, a 12 per cent premium to Monday's close, when Informa shares ended at 371p.
Informa chairman, Mr Peter Rigby, who will be chief executive of the enlarged T&F Informa, told reporters those numbers indicated there would be relatively few redundancies from the merger.
Any job losses would likely be in areas such as warehousing, printing and back-office IT support. "This is not a slash-and-burn exercise. This is about top-line growth," Mr Rigby said, adding there were unlikely to be any competition concerns. .
The publishing and exhibitions company, which was hit hard by the advertising downturn, the SARS epidemic and the Iraq war, said there were signs of recovery both for its own operations and in the business publications sector generally.
T&F also published 2003 results showing profit before tax and exceptional items rose 20 per cent to £39.6 million, on turnover up 18 per cent to £174 million.