2020 Annual Report:
Depth & Data
Read about the latest developments at Informa, the activities of our Board, our financial results and how we managed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Group’s 2020 Annual Report, Depth & Data.
Chair's Introduction
Stability and Strength
After a year that nobody could have predicted, it is a real achievement that your Company enters 2021 in a position of stability and security. This provides a solid foundation on which to build, in a year that is likely to remain highly uncertain.
Group Chief Executive Review
Agility and Specialisation
In an exceptional and demanding year, we successfully secured the stability of the Group through a comprehensive programme, which both responded to the immediate disruption of the pandemic and laid the foundations for revitalisation and a return to sustainable, long-term growth.
COVID-19 Action Plan
In January 2020, we moved at pace to establish a comprehensive plan that would respond to and where possible get ahead of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our strategy was to secure the stability and strength of the business, in order to preserve the long-term value of Informa’s brands, customer relationships and culture.
Our five-part focus was on supporting colleagues, championing our customers, ensuring operating flexibility, managing our costs and cash, and achieving stable and secure financing.
2020 Financial Results
Informa’s 2020 financial performance reflects the combination of strength in our subscription and digital products and significant disruption to our physical events portfolios.
Informa Intelligence and Taylor & Francis performed resiliently during 2020. Informa Markets, Informa Connect and Informa Tech generate a majority of revenues from activities linked to physical events, and as a result saw a significant reduction in revenues.
The breadth and depth of the Group and the effectiveness of our COVID-19 Action Plan, however, meant that Informa achieved stability and security during 2020, entering 2021 with a cash positive run-rate despite an underlying Group revenue decline and a statutory operating loss.
Statutory revenue
Underlying revenue decline
Adjusted operating profit
Statutory operating loss
Annualised total savings in 2020
Cash and available facilities
The Heart of Informa
Learn about the people and relationships that are most important to Informa, and what we did to support and work closely with colleagues, customers, suppliers and investors in 2020.
Sustainability at Informa
Informa is an increasingly high performing business when it comes to sustainability and ESG. Read about the 2020 launch of our five year FasterForward programme and the areas in which we are accelerating our work.
Spotlight on our businesses
Event portfolios
Event-led Businesses
Informa Markets, Informa Connect and Informa Tech were significantly impacted by the pandemic, when physical events were unable to take place in most regions. We held over 500 virtual events and put considerable focus on customer engagement and service.
Virtual events
Virtual Events: A World of Possibilities
Read about some of our most successful virtual events and how our brands served their markets and customers through new digital services.
Intelligence
Informa Intelligence
Each of Informa Intelligence’s four main businesses performed well in 2020. Through our Pharma Intelligence business, we also played a key role in supporting the global race for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.
Clinical Trials
Going Deeper in Clinical Trials
Read about how we support customers at every stage of a clinical trial, including recruiting suitable patients at speed.
T&F
Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis performed resiliently, despite the pandemic causing disruption to university campuses and supply chains, with good growth in our Open Research business
Open Research
Open Research: Leaps and Bounds
As part of expanding our portfolio of specialist products and strengthening our industry partnerships, Taylor & Francis jumped deeper into several exciting emerging areas of open research and OA publishing in 2020.
Board Activities
Read about the Board’s areas of focus in 2020 and key activities and developments, including the appointment of John Rishton as Chair from June 2021.
Risk Management
Our approach is to manage rather than avoid risk, within a tolerance and appetite framework formally articulated by the Board.
Read more about Informa’s principal risks and the emerging risks we monitor closely.
Trends in our Markets
Enterprise Tech
Remote Control
2020 marked the quickest transformation in working practices in living memory. Almost overnight, millions of office-based employees were forced to work from home, with some not expecting to ever return to the office full time.
Pharma
Fast Pharma
As COVID-19 swept around the world, threatening healthcare systems, locking down swathes of society and sending economies into recession, all eyes were on the pharmaceutical industry to get life back to a kind of normal.
Environment
Force of Nature
A growing acceptance that climate change is an urgent global issue, with multiple causes and effects, has seen a sharp increase in the demand for high quality research into the environment and sustainability
Previous Annual Reports
2019 Annual Report
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2018 Annual Report
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2017 Annual Report
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