Wolters Kluwer: share up on strong annual results

(CercleFinance.com) - On Wednesday Dutch publisher Wolters Kluwer announced that it would post growing in both earnings and sales in 2021, in particular thanks to an acceleration of its digital activities.


The legal software and legal announcements specialist's sales increased 4% to 4.77 billion euros last year, including organic growth of 6%, while adjusted operating profit rose by 7% to 1.20 billion euros.

Wolters Kluwer, which publishes documentation and legal intelligence, in addition to training and conferences, said it expects its adjusted operating margin to be between 25.5% and 26% this year, up from 25.3% in 2021.

For the past financial year, the group has planned to pay a dividend of 1.57 dollar per share, up 15%, to which should be added a redistribution of 600 million euros in the form of share buybacks to be completed in 2022.

The only downside is that the company says it expects its EPS to be penalised this year by a return to its historic tax rate.

At around 2.40pm, Wolters shares were up 3.5% on Euronext Amsterdam, outperforming the STOXX Europe 600 Media index of European media stocks (+1.5%).


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