B2B publisher United Business Media (LSE: UBM) (UBM) saw operating profit up 12.5 percent to £168.6 million in the 2007 calendar year, as revenue after disposals rose 8.5 percent to £801.6 million, according to its annual report. UBM has now allocated £300 million to £500 million for acquisitions in 2008 and 2009 – massively up from 2007, when it spent nearly £100 million on 17 acquisitions. UBM runs the Game Developer Conference and publishes sites like Gamasutra.
PRNewswire revenue grew 8.6 percent to £141.1 million on 4.1 percent US traffic growth (2006: £129.9 million), events up 11.8 percent to £242.1 million (2006: £220.4 million), online up to £45.3 million (2006: £42.5 million), data up to £152.6million (2006: £90.5 million) but print was the faller; down from £275.6 million to £220.5 million. UBM now expects 2006-2010 US print revenue growth to be lower than the national forecast of three percent.
B2B publishing unit CMP Information saw 13.2 percent better revenue of £192.2 million on strong events turnouts. IT news site TechWeb‘s publisher, CMP Technology, is down 10.4 percent to £160.5 million though operating profit is 18.9 percent up to £25.2 million. Two months ago, UBM split the unit in to four smaller parts.