October 2026
Largest Publishing Public Companies in the UK
Benchmark revenue and EBITDA valuation multiples for public comps like
Informa, Pearson, Bloomsbury Publishing, Future plc and Smiths News.
 | Informa PLC is an international events, digital services, and academic research group. Through various brands, products, and services, it connects businesses and professionals with the knowledge they need. The group's reportable segments are Informa Markets, Informa Tech, Informa Connect, Informa Festivals, and Taylor & Francis. The Informa Markets segment generates the highest revenue, connecting buyers and sellers across various specialist markets, including boating, pharmaceuticals, food, fashion, and infrastructure. This is achieved by delivering transaction-focused live events, such as exhibitions, specialist digital content, and targeted digital services, including data-driven demand generation products. It generates half its revenue from North America, followed by Asia. | $12 | -9% | $16B | $21B | 4.0x | 30.8x | ||
| Pearson is a British education and assessment company headquartered in London, listed on the London Stock Exchange as a FTSE 100 constituent with a secondary New York Stock Exchange listing through American depositary receipts. It is organised into five business units: Assessment & Qualifications, Virtual Learning, English Language Learning, Higher Education, and Enterprise Learning and Skills. It owns Edexcel, one of the main GCSE and A-level examination boards in England, and sells learning materials, assessments, qualifications, virtual schooling and digital learning products to schools, universities, governments, employers and individual learners. In 2025 it reported revenue of £3,577 million, operating income of £507 million and an average workforce of 17,062. The company traces its origins to 1844, when Samuel Pearson set up the business that became S. Pearson & Son; in the twentieth century it built a publishing and media portfolio that included the Financial Times, a 50% stake in The Economist and Penguin Books. Under Marjorie Scardino it refocused on education, forming Pearson Education in 1998, and between 2015 and 2020 it sold the Financial Times, its Economist stake and its remaining stake in Penguin Random House. Omar Abbosh, formerly of Microsoft, has been chief executive since January 2024. | $17 | +25% | $10B | $12B | 2.6x | 8.8x | ||
| Bloomsbury Publishing PLC is a publisher of books and other media for general readers, children, students, researchers, and professionals. It offers authors access to these multiple markets in multiple formats throughout the world in print, through e-books, digital downloads, and apps in schools, libraries, universities, and in terrestrial and internet bookshops. The company divisions are Consumer and Academic & Professional. Consumer division is split out into Children's Trade and Adult Trade; and Academic & Professional division split between Academic and Professional, Education, Special Interest, and Content Services. It derives maximum revenue from the Consumer division segment. The company operates in the UK, North America, and other countries. | $9 | +36% | $722M | $703M | 1.6x | 10.1x | ||
| Future PLC is a platform for specialist media underpinned by proprietary technology and enabled by data, with diversified revenue streams. It focuses on various areas which include technology, games, films, music, and photography under brands such as Louder, Tom's Guide, PC Gamer, Digital Camera World, Marie Claire, and others. The company functions through the following divisions; the Media division which generates maximum revenue includes income from digital advertising, affiliate revenue for products, rewards, price comparison and events; and the Magazine division includes revenue associated with digital or printed magazines or bookazines from advertising, to subscriptions, to newstrade. Its reportable segments include the United Kingdom which derives key revenue, and the United States. | $4 | -51% | $350M | $810M | 0.8x | 3.2x | ||
| Smiths News plc is a UK wholesaler of newspapers and magazines, providing nationwide early-morning distribution and logistics services. The company supplies newspapers, magazines, and related products to a wide network of retail outlets, supported by integrated services such as warehousing, pick-and-pack, returns collection, recycling, invoicing, and market insight. Operating through a hub-and-spoke distribution network across England and Wales, Smiths News delivers seven days a week, reaching locations from urban centres to remote rural communities, and also offers recycling and waste management solutions through its dedicated recycling operations. | $1 | +26% | $242M | $268M | 0.2x | 4.0x | ||
| Reach PLC is a commercial national and regional news publisher in the UK, producing and distributing content through newspapers, magazines, and digital platforms. Its portfolio includes influential and iconic brands such as the Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, My London, Daily Record, and Sunday Mail, market brands in key metropolitan markets across the country. Its group's revenue streams are from print and digital activities. | $1 | -17% | $204M | $287M | 0.4x | (1.5x) | ||
| Time Out Group PLC is a media and entertainment company. It helps people discover, book, and share what the world's cities have to offer. The company provides content about food, drink, entertainment, film, music, attractions, art, culture, shopping, nightlife, hotels, and travel. It operates in two divisions namely Time Out Media and Time Out Market. Time Out Media includes digital and print advertising, marketing solutions, live events tickets, and sponsorship, commissions generated by e-commerce transactions, and fees from the franchise partners while Time Out Market includes concessionaires' sales, Time Out operated bars, and retail, events, and sponsorship. It Its geographical segments include Europe, North America, and the Rest of the World. | $0 | -40% | $49M | $172M | 1.8x | (3.3x) | ||
| Median | $4 | -9% | $350M | $703M | 1.6x | 4.0x |
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