Reed Elsevier, the professional information company, has issued a statement reporting on the trading performance for the first quarter of 2014 and reaffirming the outlook for the full year.

Reed Elsevier
First quarter underlying revenue growth rates across Reed Elsevier, excluding biennial exhibition cycling, remained broadly consistent with full year 2013, with some small variations by market and geography.
We continued the transformation of our business, primarily through organic investment.
We supported our organic growth strategy with selective small acquisitions of content and data assets, including Innovata and Tracesmart, and with the disposal of Buyerzone.
Reed Elsevier’s financial position remained strong with good cash generation.
We previously announced our intention to deploy a total of £600m on share buybacks in 2014 as part of our pragmatic approach to ensuring that the value compounding within the business translates into shareholder value. So far we have completed £250m of this total, leaving a further £350m to be deployed by the end of the year.
Full year outlook: The outlook for 2014 is unchanged. We remain confident that, by continuing to execute on our strategy, we will deliver another year of underlying revenue, profit, and earnings growth.

Trading performance and full year outlook by business area:

Scientific, Technical & Medical
Revenue drivers were broadly unchanged on last year. In primary research, growth in article submissions and usage remained strong across the scientific, technical and medical segments. Good growth in scientific databases & tools and electronic clinical solutions was supported by strong new sales.
Print book sales and pharma promotion have continued to decline, reflecting a combination of format migration and structural changes in the pharmaceutical industry.
Full year outlook: We expect continued volume growth and strong demand for electronic products and solutions, and continued declines in print book and pharma promotion revenues. Overall we expect another year of modest underlying revenue growth in 2014.


Risk Solutions
The fundamental growth drivers of the Risk Solutions business remained strong in the first quarter. Revenue growth in the insurance segment continued to be driven by good take up of new products and services across the insurance workflow and expansion into adjacent market verticals.
Business Services growth reflected strong demand for identity authentication and fraud detection solutions across markets. The US mortgage refinancing market slowdown continued into the first quarter as expected. In Government, strong revenue growth in state & local markets was tempered by the lingering effects of the slowdown in federal markets that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Full year outlook: The outlook for the federal government segment and mortgage refinancing market remains uncertain, but overall we continue to expect good underlying revenue growth across market segments.

Business Information
Major Data Services maintained strong growth in the first quarter, driven by Accuity, ICIS and XpertHR.
Leading Brands and Other Business Magazines & Services remained stable.
Full year outlook: We continue to expect good underlying growth in Major Data Services and stable Leading Brands and Other Business Magazines & Services.


Legal
In the US and in our major European markets, conditions remained subdued in the first quarter. Other international markets continued to achieve good growth.
New platform and product releases were rolled out as planned, with customer activations and usage progressing well.
Full year outlook: We will continue the roll out of our new technology platforms and products, and will maintain our focus on process improvement. We expect our customer markets to remain subdued, however, limiting the scope for underlying revenue growth.

Exhibitions
In the first quarter the US and Japan continued to achieve strong growth, and European events saw modest overall growth.
In other markets we continued to generate strong growth, although growth rates in some emerging markets were slightly below prior year levels.
Full year outlook: We continue to expect good underlying growth in the US and Japan, and limited growth in Europe. In other markets we expect growth to remain strong, albeit at a slightly lower rate than in 2013.

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De AEX 398.04 -0,26 -0,07% Reed Elsevier EUR 15,30 +20ct vol. 60.000