The pandemic has been good for academic publisher Relx, helping it to weather a crisis that was harmful to its associated events business. Debates over vaccine efficacy have underlined the need for strong, peer-reviewed journals. Recent results recorded a rebound in underlying revenues of 7 per cent to £7.2bn in 2021.Relx, once known as Reed Elsevier, was already something of a survivor. For over a decade, publishing collectives or start-ups have been trying to disrupt the small group of businesses that dominate academic publishing. The latest attempt comes from free-to-read California publisher Academia, which has just raised fresh finance from backers, including Chinese tech giant Tencent.Relx’s fast, high-quality platforms have so far triumphed over open access models. Adjusted pre-tax profits rose a healthy 15 per cent to £2.1bn in 2021. A few years ago, the business made a slick switch to electronic distribution that left fellow UK-listed educational publisher Pearson choking on its dust. It is one of the strongest members of the XFT index. Lex selected this group of UK-listed businesses for their steady growth and lack of newsworthy crises. Relx is now capitalised at £43bn, according to Refinitiv, about a third more than Barclays and twice the value of Tesco.That was after weaker results in the exhibitions business, which accounted for 16 per cent of revenues in 2019. The division was lossmaking in 2020. Now it shows signs of bouncing back, reporting a modest £10mn in adjusted operating profit in 2021. As economies move nearer to pre-pandemic normal, exhibitions may yet add to the company’s strengths.The company’s shares have risen 330 per cent over 10 years. This compares with 500 per cent for the Amsterdam-listed stock of rival publisher Wolters Kluwer and a 50 per cent decline for Pearson, according to Bloomberg. Relx trades at 22 times forward earnings, a premium to the UK market.This diminishes the chances of a Relx outperformance in the near future. Would-be disrupters are still coming thick and fast. But for the moment, a business that published its first book in 1580 is deploying online network advantages to its own benefit, rather than succumbing to them.If you are a subscriber and would like to receive alerts when Lex articles are published, just click the button “Add to myFT”, which appears at the top of this page above the headline.
