Annual Report for the year ending 30 April 2010
Cambridge University Press is the printing and publishing house of the University of Cambridge, whose right to print and sell ‘all manner of books’ was granted by Henry VIII in 1534. It is the oldest Press in the world and has printed and published continuously since 1584.
Report
- Annual Report for the year ending 2010 (PDF, 2MB)
- Annual Performance Summary for the year ending 30 April 2010 (PDF, 1.7MB)
- 2009 publications
Executive Summary
The continued economic turmoil in western markets failed to deflect the Press from the positive performance trends of recent years, except in the key market of the USA, which experienced a torrid first half, before recovering momentum toward year-end.
Principal financial performance indicators for the year ending on 30 April 2010 were as follows:
- Net Incoming Resources Before Transfers were £5.1 million, up 50% over 2009. This figure was arrived at after deduction of an additional charge of £1.9 million for pension and post-retirement benefit financing.
- Revenues grew to £213.3 million, an increase of 3.3% over the previous year's £206.4 million. The prior year figure included £10.4 million of external printing income as against the current year's £0.9 million, a decrease which reflects the strategic decision to terminate unproductive printing activities for third-party customers. Within the above figures, the Press's own publishing generated revenues of £201.1m, a like-for-like increase of 11.5%. When adjusted for the fall of sterling against other currencies, notably the US dollar and the euro, real growth was 7.3%, a creditable performance, bearing in mind the severe cutbacks in the American markets.
- Cambridge Learning grew by 12%, with turnover now exceeding £100 million.
- Academic and Professional Book sales were £64 million, a rise of 9%.
- Scholarly Journals grew to £31 million, up by 19%.
- Operating Net Assets rose to £130 million, sufficient to cover an increased deficit in the Press's pension funds.
Overall, these are extremely satisfactory figures. The strategy of the past few years is now coming to fruition, with greater scale delivering much-improved rewards for the Press, which in turn will enable us to invest further in pursuit of our mission of disseminating knowledge in the world.
Not surprisingly, we remain concerned about the widening gap between the liabilities and assets of the pension funds. This situation is influenced by improved life expectancy, falling interest rates and depressed equity values. We continue to monitor these factors.
The policy of the Press's management and the Syndics has been to continue building the business, with an eye to the general economic recovery, whenever that may come. Given the substantial opportunities offered by the onset of the digital age, this involves a major transformation in the Press's attitudes and activities. We estimate that revenues attributable to digital products already exceed one-fifth of the total, and this figure could rise above two-thirds by 2020. These are exciting times, in which the future shape of Cambridge University Press will be defined. The Press looks forward to addressing that challenge.
Previous reports
- Annual Report for the year ending 30 April 2009 (PDF, 3MB)
- Annual Report for the year ending 30 April 2008 (PDF, 3.73MB)
- Annual Report for the year ending 30 April 2007 (PDF, 892KB)
- Annual Report - for the sixteen months up to 30 April 2006 (PDF, 1.2MB)
- Annual Report 2004 (PDF, 457KB)
- Annual Report 2003 (PDF, 352KB)