Bloomsbury is “confident” that a new Harry Potter TV show will spur the publishing house to record profit, after a slip in first-half sales spooked investors. 

The FTSE 250 group slipped as much as eight per cent on Thursday morning to 616p after it posted a five per cent dip in revenue to £152m and halved its pre-tax profit from £18m to £9m. 

Nigel Newton, the publisher’s founder and executive chairman, told the firm’s first-half numbers are “entirely immaterial” to its overall health, pointing to upcoming releases from fantasy big-hitter Sarah J. Maas and an expected surge in Harry Potter sales.

The book publisher said it will make most of its profit in the second half and is on track to meet market expectations, which have pitched adjusted profit at a record £49.9m and revenue at £354m.

Bloomsbury’s first-half drop in sales “isn’t the story,” Newton said. “Precisely when you schedule your big bestsellers and other releases determines whether that money goes in the first half or the second half, but it’s entirely immaterial to the main point, which is that we will have a record year.”

The publishing firm hopes for a boost later this year when HBO’s new television adaptation of Harry Potter, whose author, JK Rowling, Newton signed in 1996, is released on Christmas Day. 

Several major supermarkets have already ordered Bloomsbury’s new tie-in edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first novel in the series, the firm told investors. 

Newton said it was an “incredible masterstroke” for US streamer HBO to release the first episode of the Harry Potter series on 25 December, which “will turn this Christmas into the Harry Potter Christmas”.

The Bloomsbury boss said the publisher’s new edition of The Philosopher’s Stone will become a “huge bestseller” ahead of the TV show’s release.

Bloomsbury is ‘a slow company’

The publishing group will unveil two new novels by Sarah J. Maas, who has sold more than 75m copies worldwide, in October and January. 

“When her last book came out [in 2024], she was the biggest-selling author in the world, and so perhaps the same thing will happen again. This time, her fan base has certainly grown in the intervening period,” Newton said.

The publishing boss added that he is “confident because of the robust profit of other parts” of the business, including its academic digital resources arm. 

Last month, Newton outlined his plans to gradually retire from the business he founded. The firm will appoint a new chief executive in two years, with Newton set to become non-executive chairman three years into their tenure. 

Newton said: “I like having a plan. I like it being very public because it takes away the elephant in the room of people saying: ‘What’s going to happen? 

“So we’ve answered that question, but we’ve answered it in a long-term way. […] We’re a slow company. We do everything slowly and deliberately, and not in a flurry of instantaneousness.”