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Public limited company | |
Traded as | |
ISIN | GB00B2B0DG97 |
Industry | Information and Analytics |
Predecessor |
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Founded | 1993 (by merger) |
Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Key people |
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Products | Information and data analytics, academic and business publishing, exhibitions |
Revenue | ![]() |
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Total assets | ![]() |
Total equity | ![]() |
Number of employees | ![]() |
Subsidiaries | |
Website | RELX.com |
RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British corporate group comprising companies that publish scientific, technical and medical material, and legal textbooks; provide decision-making tools; and organise exhibitions. It operates in 40 countries and serves customers in over 180 nations.[3] It was previously known as Reed Elsevier, and came into being in 1992 as a result of the merger of Reed International, a British trade book and magazine publisher, and Elsevier, a Netherlands-based scientific publisher.
The company is publicly listed, with shares traded on the London Stock Exchange, Amsterdam Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbols: London: REL, Amsterdam: REN, New York: RELX). About 55 per cent of the company's revenues are generated from the US, with 23 per cent from Europe and 22 per cent from the rest of the world.[3] The company is one of the constituents of the FTSE 100 Index, Financial Times Global 500 and Euronext 100 Index.
The company, which was previously known as Reed Elsevier, came into being in 1992, as a result of the merger of Reed International, a British trade book and magazine publisher, and Elsevier, a Netherlands-based scientific publisher.[4] The company re-branded itself as RELX in February 2015.[5]
In 1895, Albert E. Reed established a newsprint manufacturing operation at Tovil Mill near Maidstone, Kent.[6]
In 1965 Reed Group, as it was then known, became a conglomerate, creating its Decorative Products Division with the purchase of Crown Paints, Polycell and Sanderson's wallpaper and DIY decorating interests.[7]
In 1970, Reed Group merged with the International Publishing Corporation and the company name was changed to Reed International Limited.[6] The company continued to grow by merging with other publishers and produced high quality trade journals as IPC Business Press Ltd and women's and other consumer magazines as IPC magazines Ltd.[6] The original family owners, the Reeds, were Methodists and encouraged good working conditions for their staff in the then-dangerous print trade.[8]
In 1985 the company decided to rationalise its operations, focusing on publishing and selling off its other interests. Sanderson was sold to WestPoint Pepperell, Inc. of Georgia, United States, that year,[7] while Crown Paint and Polycell were sold to Williams Holdings in 1987.[9] The company's paper and packaging production operations were bundled together to form Reedpack and sold to private equity firm Cinven in 1988.[10]
In 1880, Jacobus George Robbers started a publishing company called NV Uitgeversmaatschappij Elsevier (Elsevier Publishing Company NV) to publish literary classics and the encyclopedia Winkler Prins.[6] Robbers named the company after the old Dutch printers family Elzevir,[6] which, for example, published the works of Erasmus in 1587. Elsevier NV originally was based in Rotterdam but moved to Amsterdam in the late 1880s.[6]
Up to the 1930s, Elsevier remained a small family-owned publisher, with no more than ten employees. After the war it launched the weekly Elsevier magazine, which turned out to be very profitable. A rapid expansion followed. Elsevier Press Inc. started in 1951 in Houston, Texas, USA, and in 1962 publishing offices were opened in London and New York. Multiple mergers in the 1970s led to name changes, settling at "Elsevier Scientific Publishers" in 1979. In 1991, two years before the merger with Reed, Elsevier acquired Pergamon Press in the UK.[11]
Company or division/subsidiary | Date | Acquisition | Value |
---|---|---|---|
Reed Elsevier | 1993-08 | Official Airline Guides Inc, a publisher of airline schedules | $425 million[12] |
Reed Elsevier | 1994-10 | LexisNexis, an on-line information business | $1.5 billion[13] |
Reed Elsevier | 1997-03 | MDL Information Systems Inc, a US software systems and information database developer | $320M[14] |
Reed Elsevier | 1997-06 | Chilton Business Group, a US business information publishing company | $447M[15] |
Reed Elsevier | 1998-04 | Matthew Bender & Company Inc, a US publisher of legal information | $1.65bn[16] |
Reed Elsevier | 2000-10 | Harcourt, an education publishing business | $4.5bn plus debt[17] |
LexisNexis | 2004-07 | Seisint of Boca Raton, Florida, which provided the company with access to HPCC Systems for the first time | $775M[18] |
Reed Elsevier | 2005-05 | Medimedia, a medical publisher whose imprints included Medicine Publishing and Masson | $270M[19] |
Reed Elsevier | 2008-02 | Choicepoint, which had been a spinoff of Equifax's Insurance Services Group in August 1997. The acquisition was completed in September 2008. | $4.1bn[20][21] |
Reed Business Information | 2011-06 | Ascend, a London-based civil aviation data analytics company[22] | Undisclosed |
Reed Elsevier | 2011-11 | US online-data business Accuity Holdings Inc. from investment firm Investcorp | £343M ($530.1M)[23] |
LexisNexis Legal & Professional | 2012-03 | Law360, a US-based online provider of legal information and analysis[24] | Undisclosed |
Elsevier | 2013-04 | Mendeley, a London-based desktop and web program for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online[25] | Undisclosed but up to $100M |
LexisNexis Risk Solutions | 2013-09 | Mapflow, a Dublin-based group that helps insurance companies assess geographic risk, in particular in relation to flooding[26] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Risk Solutions | 2014-04 | Tracesmart, a UK-based provider of tracing, identity verification, fraud prevention and anti-money laundering solutions[27] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Risk Solutions | 2014-05 | Wunelli, a telematics data business which uses driving data for insurers, enabling them to reduce risk exposure and deliver discounts to safer drivers[28] | £25m |
Accuity | 2014-09 | Fircosoft, a Paris-based anti-money laundering company[29] | €150M |
LexisNexis Risk Solutions | 2014-11 | Health Market Science (HMS), a supplier of high quality data about US healthcare professionals[30] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Risk Solutions | 2015-01 | BAIR Analytics, a US-based law enforcement data company[31] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Legal & Professional | 2015-07 | MLex, a media organization providing exclusive analysis and commentary on regulatory risk[32] | Undisclosed |
Reed Business Information | 2015-10 | Adaptris, a fast-growing supply chain integration and e-solutions company[33] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Legal & Professional | 2015-11 | Lex Machina, a US-based online provider of legal analytics[34] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Risk Solutions | 2016-07 | Insurance Initiatives, Ltd. (IIL), a business which provides a data distribution platform that extracts, hosts and processes large quantities of data to deliver information predominantly into the point-of-quote in the UK's Property & Casualty Insurance industry.[35] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Legal & Professional | 2017-06 | Ravel Law, a San Francisco-based legal analytics company[36] | Undisclosed |
LexisNexis Risk Solutions | 2018-01 | ThreatMetrix, one of the largest repositories of online digital identities in the world | £580M ($830M)[37] |
Reed Exhibitions | 2018-02 | The Gamer Network of video game journalism websites[38] | Undisclosed |
In February 1997, Reed Elsevier divested its trade publishing group (including Heinemann, Methuen, Secker & Warburg, Sinclair-Stevenson, Mandarin, Minerva and Cedar) to Random House.[39] In 1998, Reed Elsevier sold the children's divisions of Heinemann, Methuen, Hamlyn and Mammoth to the Egmont Group.[40]
In February 2007, the company announced its intention to sell Harcourt, its educational publishing division.[41] On 4 May 2007 Pearson, the international education and information company, announced that it had agreed to acquire Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International from Reed Elsevier for $950m in cash.[42] In July 2007, Reed Elsevier announced its agreement to sell the remaining Harcourt Education business, including international imprint Heinemann, to Houghton Mifflin for $4 billion in cash and stock.[43]
In July 2009, Reed Elsevier announced its intention to sell most of its North American trade publications, including Publishers Weekly, Broadcasting & Cable, and Multichannel News, although it planned to retain Variety.[44]
In April 2010, Reed Elsevier announced that it had sold 21 US magazines to other owners in recent months, and that an additional 23 US trade magazines, including Restaurants & Institutions, Hotels, and Trade Show Week would cease publication. The closures were mostly due to the weak economy including an advertising slump.[45]
Variety, the company's last remaining North American title, was sold in October 2012.[46]
In 2014, Reed Business Information sold BuyerZone, an online marketplace; emedia, an American provider of research for IT buyers and vendors; and a majority stake in Reed Construction Data, a provider of construction data.[47][48][49]
In 2016, RELX sold Elsevier Weekly and BeleggersBelangen in the Netherlands.[50]
In 2017 the company sold New Scientist magazine.[51]
RELX's Scientific, Technical & Medical business provides information, analytics and tools that help investors make decisions that improve scientific and healthcare outcomes. It operates under the name of Elsevier and generated revenues in the year to 31 December 2017 of £2.5 billion.[3]
ScienceDirect, an online database of primary research, contains 13 million documents.[52]
Scopus is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It contains more than 50 million items in more 20,000 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide.[53]
Mendeley is a desktop and web program for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online.[54]
Elsevier is the world's largest publisher of academic articles, with 16 per cent market share, according to the Financial Times. It publishes 420,000 articles a year in about 2,500 journals.[3] Its best-known titles are The Lancet and Cell. In 1995, Forbes magazine (wrongly) predicted Elsevier would be "the first victim of the internet" as it was disrupted and disintermediated by the World Wide Web.[55]
Risk & Business Analytics provides decision-making tools which help banks spot money launderers and insurance companies weed out fraudulent claims.[56]
The business claims to have saved the state of Florida more than $60 million a year by preventing benefit fraud.[57]
Accuity provides financial crime compliance software[58] which allows institutions to comply with sanctions and anti-money laundering compliance programmes.[59] It offers KYC, online subscription-based data and software solutions for the financial services industry.[60] The company's services include helping banks and financial institutions screen for high risk customers and transactions,[61] and providing databases such as Bankers Almanac which allows clients to find and validate bank payment routing data.[59] Accuity serves financial services clients worldwide.[60]
Cirium (previously known as FlightGlobal) provides data and analytics products to the travel industry.[62]
RELX's legal business operates under the LexisNexis brand. Many of LexisNexis' brands date back to the nineteenth century or earlier. These include Butterworths and Tolley in the UK and JurisClasseur in France.[63]
RELX's exhibitions business is called Reed Exhibitions. It is the world's largest exhibitions company, running 500 shows for 140,000 exhibitors and 7m visitors.[64][65]
As of 2017[update], the board of directors consisted of:[3]
From 2011 to 2014, the average annual value of disposals was about $300m.[29] The predictability of the company's results in recent years has led to a re-rating of the shares.[66][67][68]
RELX Combined[3] | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Revenue (£m) | 5,166 | 4,509 | 4,584 | 5,334 | 6,071 | 6,055 | 6,002 | 6,116 | 6,035 | 5,773 | 5,971 | 6,895 | 7,355 | 7,492 |
Adjusted operating profit (£m) | 1,142 | 1,081 | 1,137 | 1,379 | 1,570 | 1,555 | 1,626 | 1,713 | 1,749 | 1,739 | 1,822 | 2,114 | 2,284 | 2,346 |
Adjusted EPS (p) | 31.5p | 33.6p | 35.9p | 44.6p | 45.9p | 43.4p | 46.7p | 50.1p | 54.0p | 56.3p | 60.5p | 72.2p | 81.0p | 84.7p |
Adjusted EPS (€) | € 0.70 | € 0.76 | € 0.80 | € 0.87 | € 0.79 | € 0.78 | € 0.83 | € 0.95 | € 0.99 | € 1.07 | €0.835 | €0.880 | €0.923 | €0.982 |
The RELX Environmental Challenge awards grants to projects advancing access to safe water and sanitation.[69]
The Elsevier Foundation supports libraries in developing countries, women scientists and nursing facilities.[70] In 2016 it committed $1m a year, for 3 years, to programmes encouraging diversity in science, technology and medicine and promoting science research in developing countries.[71]
Programmes operated by LexisNexis Legal & Professional include:
Programmes operated by LexisNexis Risk Solutions include:
Reed Elsevier has been criticised for the high prices of its journals and services, especially those published by Elsevier. It has also supported SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, although it no longer supports the last. Because of this, members of the scientific community have boycotted Elsevier journals. In January 2012, the boycott gained an online pledge and petition (The Cost of Knowledge) initiated by mathematician and Fields medalist Sir Timothy Gowers.[76] The movement has received support from noted science bloggers, such as biologist Jonathan Eisen.[77] Between 2012 and November 2015, about 15,391 scientists signed The Cost of Knowledge boycott. In 2016, Elsevier received 1.5 million article submissions.[78]
On 28 February 2019 following long negotiations, the University of California announced it would be terminating all subscriptions with Elsevier.[79]
As a data broker Reed Elsevier collected, used, and sold data on millions of consumers.[80] In 2005, a security breach occurred through a recently purchased subsidiary, Seisint, which allowed identity thieves to steal the records of at least 316,000 people.[81] The database contained names, current and prior addresses, dates of birth, drivers license numbers and Social Security numbers, among other data obtained from credit reporting agencies and other sources. In 2008 the company settled an action taken against it by the Federal Trade Commission for multiple failures of security practice in how the data was stored and protected. The settlement required Reed Elsevier and Seisint to establish and maintain a comprehensive security program to protect nonpublic personal information.[81]
Between 2005 and 2007, members of the medical and scientific communities, which purchase and use many journals published by Reed Elsevier, agitated for the company to cut its links to the arms trade. Two UK academics, Tom Stafford of Sheffield University and Nick Gill, launched petitions calling for it to stop organising arms fairs.[82] A subsidiary, Spearhead, organised defence shows, including an event where it was reported that cluster bombs and extremely powerful riot control equipment were offered for sale.[83][84] In February 2007 Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, published an editorial in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine arguing that Reed Elsevier's involvement in both the arms trade and medical publishing constituted a conflict of interest.[85] Subsequently, in June the company announced that they would be exiting the defence exhibition business during the second half of the year.[86]
In November 2019, legal scholars and human rights activists called on RELX to cease work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because their product LexisNexis directly contributes to the deportation of undocumented migrants.[87]