Informa Plc Reaffirms 2026 Guidance Following Strong H1 Underlying Growth

The Tip Desk · July 30, 2026 · 2 min read

The group increased its 2026 share buyback programme to £350m and reported a return to statutory profitability.

Informa Plc reported underlying revenue growth of 6.8% for the first half of 2026, excluding non-recurring data contracts [1, 2]. Reported revenues rose 1.4% to £2,063.8m, compared to £2,035.9m in H1 2025 [2, 3, 8]. Adjusted operating profit for the period was £548.3m, a 5.3% year-on-year decrease, while adjusted diluted earnings per share fell to 26.6p from 29.8p [2, 8].

Statutory performance improved significantly, with a statutory operating profit of £323.3m compared to a loss of £137.0m in H1 2025 [2, 3, 8]. The prior year's loss was primarily driven by a £484.2m non-cash impairment of goodwill within Informa TechTarget. Statutory diluted EPS was 10.4p, up from a loss of 5.9p in the previous year [2, 8].

Divisional performance was led by B2B Live Events, which saw 8.0% underlying revenue growth, driven by Informa Markets at 10.4%, Informa Connect at 5.4%, and Informa Festivals at 1.9% [2, 4]. Academic Markets achieved 5.4% underlying revenue growth (excluding non-recurring data contracts) [4, 16]. Conversely, B2B Digital Services saw underlying revenues decline by 1.3%.

Informa has increased its 2026 share buyback commitment by £100m to a total of £350m [1, 9, 11]. The company also increased its interim dividend by 6.9% to 7.48p. To secure long-term financing, the group completed a €500m 6-year Eurobond.

Looking forward, Informa reaffirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, targeting underlying revenue growth of 6% ± and double-digit underlying growth in adjusted diluted EPS [1, 2, 4]. The group reports that approximately 80% of targeted 2026 revenues, totaling $4.5bn ±, are already committed or visible [2, 4]. Forward booked revenues for H1 2027 currently exceed $0.8bn.