Bloomsbury will be left with a significant drop in income over the coming years, having been guaranteed an injection of revenue roughly every 18 months since 1997.
The final Harry Potter book, released earlier this year, could account for about half of the firm’s overall profit in 2007.
Bloomsbury chief executive Nigel Newton appointed BPC&F without a pitch after meeting BP Group co-founder Piers Pottinger.
Directors Pottinger and Ben Woodford will lead the BP team, reporting to Newton.
The agency will work on a financial PR brief and offer ‘strategic comms’ to the firm. Pottinger said the agency will concentrate on ‘strengthening Bloomsbury’s corporate profile and communicating its investment story’, as well as managing media and analyst relations around Bloomsbury’s financial calendar.
‘Harry Potter is Bloomsbury’s most successful series, but the company has a number of exciting authors on its roster,’ said Pottinger.
Bloomsbury will soon publish Divisadero, the new novel by Booker prize winner and author of The English Patient Michael Ondaatje. It has also secured a first novel from Sophie Dahl and a new book from Generation X author Douglas Coupland.
But some analysts have suggested that investors could be nervous about the London Stock Exchange-listed company’s potential to maintain the growth it has managed over its 21-year history. Newton said he wanted BPC&F to communicate ‘Bloomsbury’s future growth strategy’.
Last month Bloomsbury revealed its first-half sales this year climbed 37 per cent to £51.4m.
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