ubm plc
annual report  accounts 2011
w e help businesses  
do business w e enable professional people around the world to 
connect and engage with each other with the markets 
they serve and with the information they need to succeed
 w e do this by providing them with access both to 
their audiences and to insightful business critical 
information by whatever means works best – at live events 
through digital media or in publications
 our expert staff are deeply embedded within each 
of the many professional communities we serve w orking 
within a culture of creativity and collaboration we share 
knowledge knowhow and ideas right across ubm’ s 
businesses and around the globe
ubm annual report and accounts 2011
w e help businesses do business section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 1
financial highlights
2 at a glance
4 chairman’s statement
6 chief executive ofﬁcer’s statement
8 ubm strategy
14 segmental performance
 14 events
 18  pr newswire
 22 data services
 26 marketing services – online
 30 marketing services – print
32 financial review
41 ubm principal risks
44 sustainability
51 explanation of ubm’s business measures
52 board of directors
55 directors’ remuneration report
65 corporate governance statement
71  independent auditor’s report to the members  
of ubm plc
72 report of the directors
75 consolidated income statement
76  consolidated statement of comprehensive income
77 consolidated statement of ﬁnancial position
78  consolidated statement of changes in equity
79 consolidated statement of cash ﬂows
80 notes to the consolidated ﬁnancial statements
142 five year ﬁnancial summary
143  independent auditor’s report to the members  
of ubm plc
144 parent company proﬁt and loss account 
145 parent company balance sheet
146  notes to the parent company ﬁnancial statements
152 shareholder information
154 financial calendar 2012
154 cautionary statement
section 1  
2011 review
section 2  
governance
section 3  
financial  
statements
contents
 see explanation of ubm’ s business measures on page 51
adjusted diluted eps pence
1 31 
07 08 09 10 11
523
558
542
502
568
175
07 08 09 10 11
1661
1735 1712 1718
2019
adjusted operating proﬁt £m
dividend per share pence
52
216
238 242
250
263
07 08 09 10 11
cash generated from operations £m
317
07 08 09 10 11
1387 1361
1427
1547
2037
adjusted operating proﬁt margin 
1 5pts
07 08 09 10 11
207
196
202
193
208
revenue £m
93
07 08 09 10 11
8016
8870
8476
8892
9723  ubm annual report and accounts 2011 2
section 1 2011 review
at a glance
ubm is a global live media and b2b communications 
marketing service and data provider w e seek to help 
companies make connections communicate their 
proposition and do business effectively 
what are our key strengths what do we do
events
w e organise tradeshows and other live ‘in person’ events which enable communities to do business 
– ubm is the world’ s second largest ‘pure play’ event organiser revenues are generated by 
exhibitors purchasing vendor space through event sponsorship or for certain events through 
attendee entrance fees
see page 14 for further details 
9
data services
w e provide data and information products which support professionals in their decision making 
and daytoday activities w e look to create unique marketleading data sets that can be utilised 
by multiple end users in niche sectors revenues are generated through annual subscriptions and 
listing fees professional services and advertising or marketing support
see page 22 for further details 
9
marketing services – online 
w e execute campaigns on behalf of clients looking to enhance their branding customer awareness 
reach and engagement or to generate sales leads w e offer our clients measurable return on 
investment and high audience engagement revenues are generated through advertising such as 
banner ads lead generation services and increasingly organising live online events and building
managing community websites on behalf of clients
see page 26 for further details 
9
marketing services – print
w e also publish 95 print titles which provide clients with a more traditional advertising platform 
the majority of titles are controlled circulation magazines which continue to play an important 
role in serving specific professional and commercial communities w e have seen growing crossover 
with online marketing services as clients seek an integrated marketing approach or as publications 
migrate online w e are managing the print business towards a focused portfolio of leading titles
see page 30 for further details 
9
pr newswire
our pr newswire business provides communications products and services to professionals 
working in marketing public relations corporate communications or investor relations roles 
as well as distributing our clients’ messages and information pr newswire also helps identify 
target audiences and monitors how effectively the message has been communicated 
see page 18 for further details
9
contribution to 2011 revenue 
1 events 409
2  pr newswire 193
3 data services 192
4 marketing services – online 91
5 marketing services – print 115
2
3
1
4
5
a market leader in hosting facetoface 
interactions – increasingly important in the 
digital age 
strong presence in high growth and emerging 
economies – broad international infrastructure
positioned to capitalise on growth in the 
digital age with a range of quality multimedia 
products and services
diverse portfolio of products and services 
with cross integration 
committed skilled people working in 
an innovative and collaborative culture
brand strength within attractive 
business communities
distributed customer base – no single customer 
generates more than 1 of ubm’s revenues
highly cash generative
strong balance sheet section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 3
where do we operate who are our customers
 denotes offices with more than 50 employees
w e utilise the skills knowledge and experience we gain 
in serving one community across and between markets 
transferring best practice and innovation from one 
community to another from one geography to another 
and from one product type to another 
2011 revenue by community 
1 t echnology  ip 232
2 news distribution 193
3 health 150
4 trade  transport 75
5 lifestyle 71
6 ingredients 70
7 fashion 63
8 built environment 54
9 advanced manufacturing 39
10 paper 21
11 other 32
1 
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
other emerging 
markets
china
 emerging markets constituents are the nong10 countries – most notably for ubm china brazil india thailand   
 singapore indonesia malaysia philippines mexico and uae
uk europe n america row
revenue by geographies 2005–2011 £m
290
467
106
143
149
122
48
146
31
61
10
33
emerging markets
2005 2011
£634m total £972m
singapore
san francisco
los angeles
new jersey
paris
guangzhou
chicago
london
hong kong
ottawa
são paulo
warsaw
sydney
shanghai
amsterdam
manhasset 
tokyo
new
york
albuquerque
frankfurt
beijing
ubm services a variety of specialist business 
communities it is through intimate knowledge 
of these chosen communities that we can 
service our customers most effectively 
w e have a well balanced portfolio of businesses with exposure to both mature markets 
and higher growth emerging markets over the last six years we have increased our 
exposure to fast growth emerging markets since 2005 our revenues from china and 
other emerging markets have grown 162 to £2071m 
cleveland
mumbai
bangkok
hangzhou
manila
brussels ubm annual report and accounts 2011 4
section 1 2011 review
2011 review
2011 has been a very successful year for ubm 
revenues were £9723m up 93 over 2010 
adjusted operating profit was £2019m up 175 
and adjusted fully diluted earnings per share were up 
131 to 568p – the highest in the ubm’ s history 
the board is recommending a final dividend of 200p 
per share bringing the total dividend for the year to 
263p also a record level for ubm
the 2011 financial results demonstrate tangible 
returns on the substantial investment we have made in 
the organisational structure and culture of ubm and 
illuminate management’ s remarkable progress in 
systematically repositioning our business portfolio 
– through organic development together with our 
very active and disciplined acquisitions program 
over the last five years ubm revenues have grown at 
a 49 cagr but a very substantial shift underlies this 
growth with expansion in new businesses offsetting 
significant print declines events generated more than 
40 of revenue in 2011 up from under 30 in 2006 
while print has declined from over a third of revenues 
five years ago to 116 last year revenues generated 
in emerging markets have more than doubled 
and now comprise over a fifth of ubm’ s revenues 
ubm is a fundamentally different business from 
what it was five years ago
strategic progress
ubm continued to deliver on its strategic objectives 
during the year by investing in our organisational 
resource needs and in our core activities progress in 
events was underpinned by important acquisitions 
and organic initiatives our acquisitions included 
ecobuild the world’ s largest exhibition dedicated to 
sustainable building products and the uk’ s fastest 
growing trade event with over 55000 attendees in 
2011 ecobuild both complements our existing 
construction portfolio and affords highly attractive 
geoadaptation opportunities into growth markets 
such as china where ecobuild will operate alongside 
our existing expobuild event in 2012 as with all 
acquisitions we expect ecobuild to generate returns 
in excess of our cost of capital in the first full year 
of trading further illustrating management’ s 
continuing discipline and prudence in the pursuit 
of accretive growth
several important organic initiatives also 
underpinned our results particularly the integration 
of canon which performed well and the continued 
impact made through gem
1
 in systematic 
geoadaptation and promoting best practice across 
our fastest growing segment 
w e also continued to invest in our other 
businesses in new product development in data 
services technology  new products and sales force 
in pr newswire and new product development 
in our online activities where we have substantially 
expanded our presence in virtual events and 
community engagement products with the recent 
divestitures of farmers guardian pulse and daltons 
as well as the announced disposals of the f rench and 
belgian medical titles there has been a marked 
acceleration in the rationalisation of our print magazine 
activity  which is increasingly focused on communities 
where print magazine advertising forms one element 
of an integrated marketing services offering
chairman’ s statement
our aim t o create long term value while 
generating attractive returns for shareholders 
£9723m
revenues
up 93
1 global events momentum
john botts  
chairman section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 5
263p
dividend
full year dividend increased 
52
organisational progress
our people
continued investment in our people and business 
culture is also showing tangible returns over the 
last five years 100 high potential managers have 
participated in our business leadership program 
‘blp’ contributing not only to their capacity to lead 
businesses but creating a common lexicon and culture 
across ubm the ongoing value of the blp is 
reflected in the vibrant regional blp alumni group 
activity as well as the emergence of alumni as senior 
leaders of our businesses the blp is complemented 
by a number of regionallyfocused leadership 
programs – 2011 importantly  saw the launch of the 
first china leadership development program
success in our investment in ubm’ s culture has 
also been evident in usage of the ubm wiki which 
continues to grow and is used increasingly as a tool 
for effective collaboration across ubm our second 
annual “ubm voice” global employee engagement 
survey noted a significant increase in participation 
and engagement scores
w e have also reinforced our headquarters team 
to strengthen ubm’ s capacity to support continued 
growth and development – notable senior hires 
include rorie devine our group cio
sustainability
w e continue to focus on using our events 
management skills to support key community 
initiatives reflected in the expansion of our ngo 
events series to include a new event in the uk with 
a further event scheduled in india in 2012
our policy to limit our environmental impact 
and in particular to reduce ubm’ s carbon footprint 
has yielded highly encouraging results this year 
w e have now completed the second year of our global 
environmental reporting initiative with substantial 
expansion of energy and waste data collection and 
have established a group wide objective to reduce our 
carbon footprint by 5 by the end of 2012 our 
people and businesses have received numerous awards 
recognising leadership in carbon reduction – most 
recently in november 2011 ubm was ranked in the 
top 4 of the uk crc energy efficiency scheme’ s 
performance league table
the board
the board has continued to demonstrate 
extraordinary commitment to ubm both at 
its regular meetings including in shanghai and 
new y ork during 2011 and through ongoing 
engagement with senior executives mentoring 
relationships and participation in ubm leadership 
and training programs 
looking back at progress over the past five years 
i would like to thank the board management and 
ubm’ s staff and particularly our ceo david levin 
for all their efforts culminating in a successful 2011 
as i look back at my five years as chairman of ubm 
i am very encouraged by the quality of the business 
and people and believe that ubm is increasingly well 
positioned for sustainable growth
finally  both the board and i personally  would 
like to acknowledge the hard work and effort of all the 
people at ubm who have helped to generate another 
exceptional set of results 
john botts 
chairman
ubm plc
213
emerging markets
now account for a signiﬁcant 
proportion of ubm revenues
04 03 06 05 07 08 09 10 11
dividend pence
263
120
90
150
180
216
238 242
250  ubm annual report and accounts 2011 6
section 1 2011 review
david levin  
chief executive officer
chief executive officer’ s statement
record results in strong biennial year
operating and financial review
£9723m
revenues
up £831m
  please refer to explanation of ubm’ s business measures on page 51
2011 results
ubm had a strong year in 2011 revenues grew 93 
to £9723m 2010 £8892m and adjusted operating 
profit increased 175 to £2019m 2010 £1718m 
the adjusted operating profit margin over the year 
was 208 2010 193 reflecting the strong 
performance in our events businesses and also the 
consistent on plan delivery of our other businesses 
adjusted profit before tax increased to £1774m 
2010 £1564m fully diluted adjusted eps 
was 568p an increase of 66p over the prior year 
2010 502p
2011 achievements
w e have made great progress across all our businesses 
in the course of 2011 further acquisitions notably 
of events businesses and disposals of print assets 
together with organic growth initiatives continue our 
strategy of focusing on attractive communities and 
growing economies product investment around pr 
newswire and our data services businesses will raise 
the value of our business in the coming years
the strength and resilience of our events business 
continues to underpin overall group performance 
accounting for 409 2010 349 of group 
revenue and 625 2010 517 of group 
operating profit excluding corporate costs in 2011 
we successfully delivered over 400 events 2010 
over 300 events were organised in 31 different 
countries 2010 21 countries and there were 11 new 
geoadapted events events floor space for our annual 
events was 12 million m
2
 in 2011 compared to 
09 million m
2
 in 2010 and the number of attendees 
at our events grew from 12 million to 15 million up 
25 further illustrating our determination to offer 
an ever bigger and better facetoface experience to 
the business communities we serve
our ‘gem’ initiative driving best practice across 
both new and geoadapted events is focused on 
enhancing the performance of our ‘live media’ 
business both around the quality of our product 
offering and the resulting customer experience 
underlying growth in the events business was 
146 and this reflects the growing strength of our 
core franchises 2011 also saw the acquisition of eight 
eventsrelated businesses for £712m the most 
notable acquisition was ecobuild the world’ s leading 
sustainable building exhibition and the fastest 
growing trade event in the uk for an initial cash 
consideration of £31m and a performance based 
consideration of up to £20m ecobuild fits well with 
the existing ubm built environment portfolio with 
strong potential for multiple geoadaptations a first 
edition has now been launched for china in 2012 
ecobuild will run in march 2012 and is on track with 
our acquisition case other acquisitions in the events 
space during the year have helped to consolidate our 
drive to leverage markets and communities exhibiting 
longterm structural growth characteristics
biennial events in 2011 have delivered £362m in 
revenues compared to £185m in 2010 comparing 
our 2011 biennial events including marintec and 
fie to the same portfolio’ s performance in 2009 
revenue for these shows has grown by 27 section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 7
£2019m
adjusted operating proﬁt
up 175
£1774m
adjusted proﬁt before tax
up 134
568p
fully diluted adjusted eps
up 131
pr newswire revenues increased by 36 during 
2011 to £1878m 2010 £1812m our us 
distribution revenue increased 06 to £887m while 
us revenues other than distribution comprised of 
engagement w orkflowdata and filing services 
decreased by 18 to £393m 
pr newswire’ s global operating margin was 
218 which while down on the previous year’ s 
232 was ahead of the target we had set of 208 
and reflected a shift in mix as well as significant 
investments in our products our technology and 
in sales and marketing to drive continued growth 
in the changing competitive and technological 
environments expansion of our newer businesses in 
europe china and in other emerging markets affects 
pr newswire’ s margin similarly growth in vintage 
printing and filing revenues also has a dilutive effect 
on margins pr newswire’ s nonus revenue 
increased to 318 of total global revenues from 
293 in 2010 and this represented a 126 growth 
over the year 
overall data services revenues of £1870m 
2010 £1847m were robust in 2011 operating 
margins achieved were 162 2010 185 in line 
with guidance provided to the market softness in 
the margin was partially driven by the anticipated 
ongoing decline in higher margin print directory 
advertising together with the continuing focused 
investment in developing online and workflow 
products continued weakness in t rade  t ransport 
was somewhat offset by strong advances elsewhere 
most notably in t echnology  ip but also in health 
and pulp  paper 
importantly the structural migration from print 
data to digital formats continues to be a prominent 
feature of the revenue mix with online data and 
services this year accounting for 695 of data 
services’ revenues 2010 667 
in 2011 as with the previous year the online 
segment was one of our fastest growing segments 
up by 279 to £885m 2010 £692m driven 
primarily by strong banner advertising and continued 
traction in the roll out of our attractive new online 
communities and digital environments 2011 has 
been another exceptionally strong year for digital 
environments with the successful delivery of over 250 
2010 103 discrete events across the globe 
digital environments continue to expand from the 
initial virtual events that delivered online trade shows 
to delivering digital experiences across multiple 
environments and communities including 
recruitment and incompany communication 
w e continue to see digital environments as symbiotic 
to our live in person events business
print revenues fell 222 during the year in line 
with previous guidance to the market as a segment 
print now accounts for 116 2010 162 of total 
group revenues reflecting the success of our strategy 
to rationalise our print business disposals during the 
year included the french healthcare newspaper 
‘quotidien du medecin’ and its related weekly 
and monthly titles as well as the uk ‘publican’  
and two us healthcare journals as a result of the 
rationalisation process segmental margins now stand 
at 54 2010 69 subsequent to the year end we 
made further disposals notably of farmers’ guardian 
and pulse decreases in printrelated operating profit 
are now being made up by increases in operating 
profit derived from digital subscriptions
ubm has gone through tremendous change 
in the past five years – in its business mix the 
geographies in which it does business and also in 
developing an increasingly distinctive and open 
culture i would like to state my personal thanks to 
our chairman john botts who will stand down later 
in the year for his advice and support to me over the 
past five years while we have gone through all of these 
developments ubm has benefitted hugely from his 
infectious energy his deep understanding of the 
business and his huge passion for its people and 
i personally have benefitted from his counsel
david levin 
chief executive ofﬁcer
ubm plc
11 10
2011 revenue by segment £m
events
pr newswire
data services
marketing services – online 
marketing services – print 
total
 
 397
188
187
88
112
972
2011
310
181
185
69
144
889
2010 ubm annual report and accounts 2011 8
section 1 2011 review
our business model
ubm seeks to help companies make connections 
communicate their proposition and do business 
effectively 
w e transfer the skills knowledge and experience 
we gain in serving one community across and 
between markets transferring best practice and 
innovation from one community to another from 
one geography to another and from one product type 
to another from one company to many we enable 
the flow of information directing messages and 
assessing their impact on specific audiences 
community understanding
as the graph on page 3 highlights we operate 
in a variety of specialist communities which have 
attractive growth characteristics w e seek to know 
who’ s who in the community  have relationships with 
key participants create rich databases of relevance 
to those professionals understand the key themes 
affecting their community  their information needs 
and how they operate it is through this thorough 
understanding that we are able to service them 
most effectively  
quality offering
by having a broad range of quality services and 
products we can create an offering specifically 
designed to meet the needs of each community being 
served as described in more detail below we think 
the media industry is shifting to a more integrated 
approach and therefore having a full range of 
products and services is increasingly important
geographic diversity
the transformation to a global economy leads us 
to believe that diverse geographic experience and 
infrastructure is advantageous it also provides 
us with access to high growth opportunities in 
emerging markets and quality revenues from 
more mature markets
business model
ubm’s marketplace 
the b2b marketplace which ubm operates in is 
extremely fragmented reflecting the number and 
variety of communities and geographies we serve 
and the diversity of products and services we offer 
estimates of its size and growth prospects vary 
considerably outsell estimates that the ‘information 
industries’ marketplace which includes hr 
information search aggregation  syndication 
market research b2b t rade publishing and 
directories is worth 462bn and is expected to 
have grown 29 in 2011 pricewaterhousecoopers 
meanwhile estimate the more narrowly defined 
‘business to business’ market which excludes live 
events but includes business information trade 
magazines and directory advertising at 1485bn 
for 2011 and expect cagr of 35 between 2011 
and 2015 
there are two key influences on the long term 
development of the marketplace the continuing 
impact of the ‘digital revolution’ and the shift towards 
the emerging markets 
operating and financial review
ubm strategy
our strategic thinking
community 
understanding
geographic  
diversity
quality  
offering section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 9
w e are seeing a trend towards a more integrated 
marketing approach with digital at its core perhaps 
stimulated by the global recession we are seeing a 
greater degree of client focus on efficiency and 
profitability for example our customers want to 
be able to measure the impact of their marketing 
campaigns or our audiences who have access to a 
proliferation of content are now looking for quality 
and accessibility the distribution channels are 
changing with mobile apps becoming increasingly 
important and we are seeing a trend from solely 
traditional media platforms to a combination 
which offer a high level of engagement and are 
more embedded in professionals’ workflow  
the importance of relationship marketing 
remains and we believe that facetoface interactions 
will continue to be a crucial element of the b2b 
industry one could even argue that in an increasingly 
environmentally conscious world it is appealing 
to attend a single event and meet a multitude 
of contacts rather than travelling to meet each 
contact individually 
the other factor influencing the long term 
development of the marketplace is the 
macroeconomic environment and the shift towards 
the ‘emerging markets’  in the short term the industry 
as a whole should benefit from the global recovery 
– with improvements in the corporate spending 
environment and in the proportion of spend allocated 
to marketing the speed of growth will vary with the 
expectation that emerging markets will deliver the 
highest levels of growth 
the digitalisation trends and emerging markets 
shift are driving development both of new media 
products and services and of new business models to 
support them across all sectors and in all geographies 
w e view ubm’ s diversity as a distinct advantage – 
our varied portfolio and breadth of geographic 
exposure enables us to be agile and capitalise on 
changes in our marketplace 
our strategy
positioning ubm to benefit from these macro 
long term shifts in the industry is our primary 
strategic objective 
our strategy is to take a leading role in the live 
media and b2b communications markets in chosen 
communities by building businesses which are well 
positioned to prosper in the digital age and have the 
potential for global growth the graphs above show 
how over the last five years we have reshaped the 
portfolio and geographic exposure of ubm
whilst our strategy remains consistent we’ve 
changed how we articulate it and are adopting a more 
granular approach w e have identified five priorities 
for delivering our strategy
1 organic revenue growth
2 growth through acquisition
3 people and culture
4 responsible business
5 appropriate processes
w e have made good strategic progress in 2011 – 
evidenced through the financial key performance 
indicators
kpi 2011 2010
year on  
year  
change
revenue £m 9723 8892 93
adjusted operating 
profit £m 2019 1718  17 5
adjusted operating 
margin 208 193  15
adjusted eps p 578 510  133
fully diluted  
adjusted eps p 568 502  131
cash from  
operations £m 2037 1547  3 17
roace 146 147
net debt  
adjusted ebitda 24x 26x
more information on segmental 
marketplaces see pages 14 to 31
9
 see explanation of ubm’ s business measures on page 51
05 11
segmental revenues 2005 vs 2011 £m
events
pr newswire
data services
marketing services – online 
marketing services – print
t otal 
397
188
187
88
112
972
167
104
73
30
260
634
 
 
 
2011 2005
05 11
geographic revenues 2005 vs 2011 £m
n america
europe
uk
emerging markets
ro w 
t otal 
467
143
122
207
33
972
 
 
 
2011
290
106
149
79
10
634
2005 ubm annual report and accounts 2011 10
section 1 2011 review
mix type of revenues 
year on  
year  
change 

2011 
£m
2010 
£m
us distribution 887 881 07
us other inc vintage 393 400 18
canada newswire 308 297 37
pr newswire europe 187 135 385
pr newswire asia and 
latam 103 99 40
events pr newswire
w e continue to develop the events portfolio by launching new events enlarging the size 
of the events increasing the yields and sharing best practice knowledge 
w e continue to innovate to expand pr 
newswire’ s offering beyond the us wire 
product along with further development 
of the footprint outside north america
operating and financial review
ubm strategy continued
1  
organic revenue growth w e continually look 
to strengthen the products and services within 
our portfolio organically below we detail growth 
initiatives by segment
for more detail about the events business and 
its performance in 2011 see pages 1417 
9
for more detail about the pr newswire business 
and its performance in 2011 see pages 1821 
9
w e also grow in emerging markets ‘em’ through the launch of new events 
under brands which have been successful elsewhere ‘geoadaptation ’
operational performance indicators
year on  
year  
change 2011 2010
sqm of annual events 000’s 12039 9252 301
sqm of biennial events 000’s 117 7 566 1081
attendees to annual events 152m 122m 246
attendees to biennial  
events 000’s 1344 782 719
 biennial ‘odd’ year events are larger
operational performance indicators
2011 2010
revenue of new launch events £m 55 40
no of new geoadapted events 11 4
proportion of em revenue 
2011 2010
em 395 387
non em 605 613
06 07 08 09 10 11
revenue £m
288
245
220
292
310
397
revenue £m
161
154
141
130
181
188
06 07 08 09 10 11
a selection of 2011 geoadapted events
internal infrastructure 
w e continue to build our internal infrastructure 
to better support the businesses  section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 11
data services
with content now becoming more available 
through the internet it is important we 
invest and innovate to deepen our data sets 
and enhance the delivery channels to our 
customers w e are also looking to improve 
the quality of revenues increasing the 
proportion of digital revenues and diversify 
the delivery channels the mix between 
‘ subscription’  ‘professional services’ and 
‘ advertising’ revenues
marketing services – online 
the rapidity of technological advance 
means that we must continually innovate 
to ensure we are best serving our clients 
w e seek to capitalise on the trend towards 
an integrated marketing approach through 
developing our high engagement offering 
and growing the number of live online 
events and increasing the proportion of 
lead generation and other revenues 
marketing services – print
although print publishing in general is 
in decline we believe there is a role for 
leading community titles w e continue 
to manage the print portfolio to focus 
on leading titles w e believe that it now 
makes sense to start the process of 
combining our print segment with 
online for an integrated marketing 
services product offering
operational performance indicators
year on  
year  
change 2011 2010
lead generation  other 
revenues £m 289 218 326
proportion of lead generation 
and other 326 315 11pts
no of virtual events 255 103 147 6
for more detail about the data services business 
and its performance in 2011 see pages 2225 
9
1 events
2 pr newswire
3 data services
4 marketing services – online 
5 marketing services – print 
409
193
192
91
115
contribution to 2011 revenue 
2
3
1
4
5
 
 
 
for more detail about the online business and 
its performance in 2011 see pages 2629 
9
revenue £m
06 07 08 09 10 11
54
57
42 43
69
89
for more detail about the print business and 
its performance in 2011 see pages 3031 
9
revenue £m
06 07 08 09 10 11
166
216
231
256
144
112
06 07 08 09 10 11
179
168
143
91
185 187
revenue £m 
number of titles 
07 08 09 10 11
109
140
155
123 95
 reflects acquisition of 26 titles acquired as part of the
 acquisition of canon
operational performance indicators
year on  
year  
change 2011 2010
digital revenues £m 1300 1232 55
digital  services 
proportion 695 667 28pts
proportion of revenues
subscription 630 641 11pts
professional services 289 263 26pts
advertising 81 96 15pts
the ubm wiki – ubm’ s online community 
allows employees from all around the globe 
and different businesses to share ideas 
information and best practice 
wiki usage 
wiki usage continues to 
increase – number of pages 
viewed in 2011
22 to 46m ubm annual report and accounts 2011 12
section 1 2011 review
consideration
2011 acquisitions geography segment
excluding  
expected contingent 
and deferred 
consideration and  
cash acquired
£m
expected 
contingent  
and deferred 
consideration 
£m
including  
expected 
contingent 
and deferred 
consideration  
£m
rotaforte t urkey events 10 35 45
satte india events 25 06 31
amb malaysiavietnam events 41 31 7 2
catersource us events 27 03 30
ecobuild uk events 307 142 449
index fairs 70 india events 10 13 23
online marketing summit us events 10 03 13
renewable energy india india events 34 15 49
t otal event acquisitions 464 248 712
other intangibles 03 01 04
total 467 249 716
1  consideration is net of cash acquired and includes the latest estimate of expected contingent and deferred consideration
2  2011 roi calculated on full year numbers for 2009 and 2010 acquisitions and proforma full year numbers for 2011 acquisitions
3  roi calculated on a proforma basis
operating and financial review
ubm strategy continued
2
growth through acquisition
w e invest in strategic acquisitions in order 
to strengthen our existing portfolio or provide 
exposure to markets we feel are attractive 
target selection 
w e select targets which are complementary to our 
existing business in terms of geography  segment or 
community  below is a table showing the acquisitions 
made in 2011 
strict ﬁnancial discipline 
a target acquisition also has to satisfy financial criteria 
with projected post tax return on investment roi 
exceeding 8 within the first full year of ownership
consideration
1
pre tax return  
on investment 
£m
pre tax
2011
2
2010 2009
2009  
acquisitions 265 96 45 148
2010  
acquisitions 2589 122 106
2011  
acquisitions
3
716 83
t otal 357 0 113 section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 13
our people
a key element for creating long term growth 
is our ability to attract develop and retain 
the most talented people at all levels our 
people are our most valuable asset w e do 
this through a variety of initiatives including
talent management – robust succession 
planning and talent development processes 
most notably our business leaders program 
and our leadership development programs 
in china and europe
adopting employment policies which offer 
flexible working paid leave and sabbaticals 
appropriate reward incentives – 
including bonus long term incentives 
and sharesave schemes
promoting the wellbeing of our people 
– wellness clinics and programs health 
checkups healthclub reimbursement 
schemes etc
our culture
equally important is the culture of the 
group – we have continued to make progress 
in developing a positive culture which is 
meritocratic intellectually honest 
entrepreneurial and innovative which 
values respect and integrity  and which is 
agile and responsive to changes in our 
workplace w e believe that clear and open 
communication is fundamental to fostering 
this positive culture w e use a variety of 
means to communicate the ubm wiki 
staff surveys town hall meetings 
enewsletters etc encouragingly  our 
second ubmwide engagement survey 
demonstrated an improvement in employee 
engagement with feedback that employees 
are more motivated by the vision of ubm 
have greater trust in leadership than in 2010 
and consistent with last year feel that their 
jobs are interesting and challenging with 
good management capabilities and practices 
in place 
structure  control 
it is important to ensure we have the 
appropriate processes in place to carefully 
and efficiently measure and control 
performance within the business 
the ceo hosts monthly meetings
video calls with each of the divisional ceos 
w e have a thorough quarterly review process 
in which the divisional ceos update on 
performance and expectations against 
budget rewards are also aligned with 
strategy through incentives to achieve 
budget and specific personal objectives
focus on kpis 
as highlighted on page 9 the board reviews 
certain financial kpis and operational 
performance indicators the quarterly review 
process mentioned above also looks at the 
financial performance of each of the 
divisions
sound risk management
sound risk management is an essential 
discipline for running the business 
efficiently and pursuing our strategy 
successfully our internal audit function 
manages a ubmwide annual risk mapping 
exercise to identify the key risks in each 
division as well as the procedures and 
controls to mitigate them this process is 
complemented by topdown review of key 
risks by our executive management team
this entire process is reviewed by the 
audit committee and then by the board to 
ensure a consistent and coherent approach to 
the principal risk factors and to those other 
risk factors that may arise or which may 
become material in the future divisional 
performance and associated risks are regularly 
discussed on ceo monthly calls and we also 
conduct scenario planning exercises involving 
divisional and group management to ensure 
that we are able to respond robustly to 
new challenges
3
people and  
culture
4
responsible  
business
5
appropriate
processes
the issues of climate change and 
sustainability affect us all and as a global 
company we are committed to ensuring 
that we engage positively with society and 
minimise any negative and social impacts 
from our operations acting with respect is 
central to the way we do business and we 
believe that acting in a responsible manner 
is key to delivering sustainable value for 
our shareholders
environment 
as a leading organiser of events all around 
the world we recognise the impact that 
our business can have on the environment 
w e seek to reduce our carbon footprint over 
time and improve our recycling efforts
community 
w e recognise the importance of our 
relationship with the communities in which 
we operate over time we have been shifting 
our community focus away from more 
passive philanthropic activities such as 
simple cash donations to more active 
engagement looking to bring our expertise 
to bear in how we serve the communities in 
which we operate 
ngo events 
these are unique free events bringing 
together charities ngos and companies 
w e believe that the best way for us to support 
the communities in which we do business is 
by doing what we do best – running events 
w e harness ubm’ s commercial resources 
and the expertise and experience of our staff 
in a notforprofit environment the ngo 
events series has the personal commitment 
of david levin ceo who is the sponsor at 
board level ubm annual report and accounts 2011 14
section 1 2011 review
the business model – 
ubm creates value by
expansion into niche business communities 
exhibiting attractive growth characteristics
developing and reinforcing the brand awareness of 
our events to ensure longevity of customer loyalty
maximising growth opportunities via both 
acquisitions and geoadaptation into new 
geographies particularly into attractive emerging 
markets such as china
managing our existing portfolio of events up to 
and including making accretive disposals to ensure 
a continued focus on growth and market strength
revenues are driven by 
the number of events
the size and commercial success of events
the pricing achieved with exhibitors attendees 
and sponsors
attractions of the events industry
often stand space deposits are paid a year in advance 
therefore generating attractive cash and working 
capital characteristics
forward order book visibility
events where revenues are predominantly derived 
from standholders exhibit far less cyclicality of 
earnings than attendee led events
potential challenges
government and associations influence – ubm 
maintains strong relationships where necessary 
including recently creating a managerial position in 
beijing whose primary mandate is to manage and  
coordinate ubm’s overall china relationships
event maturity – we closely monitor the life cycle of 
our events and manage our event brands accordingly
infrastructure constraints within emerging markets
changes in legislation with regards to health  
safety and sustainability
the pace of technological change
venue constraints
our events business spans large industry exhibitions and 
conventions to forums fairs and tradeshows direct contact 
between buyers and sellers in the context of sales and marketing 
remains of paramount importance growth in live exhibitions 
continues unabated and is complemented by the increasing 
emergence of digital formats
operating and financial review
segmental performance
events
1  emerging markets constituents are the nong10 countries – most notably 
for ubm china brazil india thailand singapore indonesia malaysia 
philippines mexico and uae 
1 n america
2 europe
3 uk
4 emerging markets
1
5 ro w
270
182
122
395
31
geographic split 
1 
2
3
4
5
 
 
 
 
1 t echnology
2 lifestyle
3 ingredients
4 fashion
5 other
208
156
167
146
323
community split 
1 
2
3
4
5
 
 
 
 
revenue growth £m
07 06 08 09 10 11
397
245
220
292 288
310
adjusted operating proﬁt margins  
07 06 08 09 10 11
341
274
294
282
303 302 section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 15
the marketplace 
amr the events industry analysts estimate that in 
2011 the global events industry revenues recovered 
significantly from the flat performance of the prior 
year increasing by 4 to 26bn factors driving this 
increase include the increasing professionalisation of 
exhibitions in emerging markets which are seeing 
upward pricing pressure as international organisers 
continue to enter new markets led by the need to 
meet increasing demand more mature events markets 
are predicted to grow slightly above gdp with 
significant variation across markets events revenues 
at ubm contrastingly grew 28 in 2011 or 
146 on an underlying basis across our annual 
event portfolio
1 us
2 europe
3 uk
4 emerging markets
1
5 ro w
422
187
60
161
170
exhibition market by geography 
1 
2
3
4
5
 
 
 
 
amr project cagr growth in the global 
exhibitions market over the next few years of c5 
within this there is some variation between country 
performance as illustrated in the table below 
country
2010–2015  
cagr 
brazil 97
india 97
china 89
turkey 7 6
hong kong 55
us 47
france 40
uk 34
italy 21
germany 13
ubm’s market position
the global exhibitions market remains highly 
fragmented and no sector participant has yet 
managed to breach 5 global market share ubm 
has once again maintained its global number four 
position in the market for exhibitions as illustrated 
in the table below  if revenues from venue ownership 
are excluded ubm is the world’ s second largest ‘pure 
play’ event organiser
1 reed exhibitions
2 messe frankfurt
3 gl events
4 ubm
5 messe dusseldorf
6 other
43
24
20
19
18
876
exhibition market by operator 
 pure play events organisers
1 
2
3
4
5
6
 
 
 
 
ubm’ s strength in events is driven by our ability to 
provide high quality events servicing an increasingly 
broad range of communities in an ever wider range of 
geographies and markets the brand strength of our 
top events remains key to our continued performance 
our top 20 annual events account for 435 of total 
events revenue
our events strategy remains firmly anchored in 
the pursuit of growth in key emerging markets such as 
china india brazil malaysia vietnam and t urkey 
the proportion of ubm’ s events revenues derived 
from emerging markets in 2011 stood at 395 
2010 387 versus the 161 share of the global 
events market that these countries represent for these 
reasons ubm continues to enjoy outstanding long 
term growth prospects
395
emerging markets
ubm’s events operations are 
well aligned geographically 
with a signiﬁcant proportion 
of revenues generated in 
emerging markets
161 
exhibitions marketplace
emerging markets 
representation within the 
global events marketplace 
is relatively small at present
1 9
ubm’s market position
highly fragmented market – 
no one player has in excess 
of 5 market share ubm’s 
position 4th with 19
a selection of ubm event brands ubm annual report and accounts 2011 16
section 1 2011 review
operating and financial review 
segmental performance continued
2011 performance 
w e are delighted by the progress of our events 
business which following encouraging growth in 
revenues and an improved margin performance 
now accounts for 409 of ubm’ s revenues 2010 
349 and 625 of total adjusted operating profit 
excluding corporate costs 2010 517
during 2011 we organised over 400 events 
including over 250 tradeshows the total 
number of events has increased since 2010 as a result 
of 24 launches including 11 geoadaptations and 
over 60 events acquired including the majority of the 
canon events where we did not report the financial 
results in 2010 
t otal reported revenues for events grew by 280 
to £3969m 2010 £3100m partly driven by the 
positive biennial effect in 2011 we organised 20 
biennial events 2010 16 events which contributed 
£362m of revenue 2010 £185m v ersus the 2009 
editions these events grew by 270 or 285 on a 
constant currency basis
annual event revenues grew by 237 to 
£3607m 2010 £2915m driven by an increase in 
floor space m
2
 w e saw stand revenues rise by 269 
to £2478m 2010 £1953m attendee revenues rise 
by 130 to £416m 2010 £368m and sponsorship 
and other revenues increase by 203 to £714m 
2010 £594m
a total of 49000 exhibitors attended our 
annual events during the year which is an 
increase of 32 2010 37000 with square 
metres for our annual portfolio increasing by 
30 to 1204000 2010 925200 and visitor 
numbers increasing by 25 to 1520000 
2010 1220000
w e continue our drive to ensure events 
organised by ubm are best in class and our 
events best practice initiative ‘global events 
momentum’ gem is expanding with company
wide engagement and focus in areas such as 
customer value technology innovation new revenue 
sustainability and financial insight 
in 2011 we continued to expand through both 
geoadaptations and acquisitions w e held events in 
31 different countries 2010 21 countries including 
t urkey malaysia and vietnam w e launched 11 
geoadapted events around the world with notable 
expansions in indonesia and india as well as in the 
usa during 2011 we invested a total of £712m 
in buying 100 of or majority interests in eight 
events related businesses which contributed £79m 
to the 2011 reported events revenues had they 
been owned since 1 january 2011 they would have 
contributed approximately a further £154m in 2011 
we have realised the full year benefit of our significant 
acquisition in 2010 of canon communications 
which contributed £318m of event revenue in 2011 
2010 £11m
five of our 2011 acquisitions operate events in 
high growth sectors in emerging markets w e have 
significantly expanded our business in south east 
asia through the acquisition of amb exhibitions 
with events in malaysia vietnam and the philippines 
serving the water livestock energy and mechanical
electrical industries 
events continued
£3969m
t otal events revenue 
grew by 280 over the year 
jewellery and gem fairs
ubm serves the global jewellery industry with a range 
of international tradeshows publications and online 
products its ﬂagship tradeshow hong kong jewellery 
 gem fair was established in september 1983 in a hotel 
ballroom attracting around a hundred exhibitors the 
september edition achieved its status as the biggest 
jewellery event in the world in 2009 with the concept of 
product sectorisation that allowed the event to take place 
in two venues in hong kong occupying 130000 sqm 
in 2011 the fair reached another record year with a total 
number of 3454 exhibitors from 46 countries and regions 
and 51500 visitors from 155 countries and regions 
in addition to the local expansion by launching its 
june edition in 1986 ubm extended its jewellery event 
portfolio in china by developing the china international 
gold jewellery  gem fair in shenzhen in 2003 
guangzhou in 2004 and shanghai in 2005 it continued 
its geographical expansion in japan and india further 
expansion continued through the acquisition in turkey 
of a 65 interest in rotaforte the country’s largest 
jewellery event
for more information go to httpexhibitionsjewellerynetasiacom u section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 17
w e continue to invest in india with acquisitions 
including sa tte which is india’ s largest travel  
tourism event renewable energy and a majority 
stake in index fairs which is india’ s largest interiors 
tradeshow 
the uk ecobuild acquisition reflects our 
strategy in action a fastgrowing world leading 
event in the attractive sustainable design and 
building construction sector which has performed 
consistently has excellent geoadaptation 
opportunities china event already announced for 
2012 and has global synergies with our existing 
built environment business
on an underlying basis revenues grew by 146 
during the year this figure represents the constant 
currency organic growth of our continuing annual 
events portfolio stripping out biennials discontinued 
activities and acquired businesses our 2011 top 20 
annual trade shows represented 435 of our events 
business in terms of revenue and 629 of events 
adjusted operating profit 
the table below shows annual event revenues by 
geography emerging markets revenues remain at 
40 of our total annual event portfolio despite 
growth of 228 since 2010 the geographical split 
is impacted by the addition of the canon events in 
north america the positive emerging markets 
growth has been driven by our acquisitions made in 
the year and by strong underlying growth including 
new launches of 246
north america performance is largely driven by 
canon along with strong underlying events such as 
black hat it security and interop t echnology 
where revenues grew by 254 and 221 
respectively game developer conference celebrated 
its 25th anniversary with record attendees
our business in europe has grown by 
519 this is partly due to the addition of the 
canon european events but also strong growth in 
cphi w orldwide of 104 this is our second 
largest event in revenue terms and accounts for 
40 of our 2011 european revenues for 
annual events
revenues from our uk events have 
decreased by 17 partly due to tougher macro 
economic conditions together with the decision 
to discontinue some events
adjusted operating profit increased by 
446 to £1352m 2010 £935m with an 
increase in operating margin to 341 2010 
302 this is partly impacted by the biennial 
effect as our biennials in 2011 operated at a 
higher margin w e continue to invest in new 
launches and geoadaptations which have not 
materially impacted our overall margin performance
£1352m
t otal events adjusted 
operating proﬁt 
grew by 446 over the year
annual events revenue performance
full year 
2011 
£m
full year
 2010
£m
change 

change 
at cc 

underlying 
change

emerging markets 142 5 1160 228 268 246
n america 1041 800 301 397 102
uk 47 4 482  17 04 61
europe 553 364 519 37 9 117
ro w 114 109 46 86 44
annual events revenue 3607 291 5 237 26 5 146
 restated for a biennial event now classified as an annual event
total events performance
full year  
2011 
£m
full year
2010
£m
change 

change 
at cc 

underlying 
change

annual events revenue 3607 2915 237 265 146
biennial events revenue 362 185 957 967 na
total revenue 3969 3100 280 308 146
t otal adjusted operating profit 1352 93 5 446 47 9
t otal adjusted operating profit margin 341 302 39pts
restated for a biennial event now classified as an annual event ubm annual report and accounts 2011 18
section 1 2011 review
the business model – 
pr newswire creates value by
offering an information and content distribution 
platform with unparalleled reach
allowing targeted authenticated and 
compliant distribution
creating new products which enable marketing 
investor relations and communications professionals 
to do their job more effectively
revenues are driven by
the number of press and earnings releases
the types of releases
new products which aid marketing investor 
relations and communications professionals
attractions of pr newswire’s industry
increasing necessity for clients to engage with 
a targeted audience
potential growth of the global disclosure market 
with the increasing obligation to engage more both 
in and outside of the us
growth opportunities by innovating through 
new channels and into new geographies
the scalability of technology platforms
potential challenges
reputational risk arising from unauthorised or 
fraudulent releases
risk of commoditisation of traditional wire products
speed of change within the digital environment
revised regulatory guidance reducing clients’ reliance 
on traditional wire distribution
our pr newswire business provides communications products 
and services to professionals working in marketing public 
relations corporate communications or investor relations roles 
as well as distributing our clients’ messages and information 
pr newswire also helps identify target audiences and monitors 
how effectively the message has been communicated 
operating and financial review 
segmental performance continued
pr newswire
1  emerging markets constituents are the nong10 countries – most notably 
for ubm china brazil india thailand singapore indonesia malaysia 
philippines mexico and uae 
revenue growth £m
07 06 08 09 10 11
188
141
130
181
adjusted operating proﬁt margins 
07 06 08 09 10 11
218
348
323
281 278
232
1 us distribution
2 us other
3 us vintage
4 pr newswire 
 europe
5 other 
 pr newswire
 businesses
business split 
1 
2
3
5
4
472
114
95
 
100
 
 
219
1 n america
2 europe
3 uk
4 emerging markets
1
839
50
52
59
geographic split 
1 
2
3
4
 
 
  section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 19
the marketplace 
approximately half of pr newswire’ s revenues are 
derived from its core distribution business each year 
revenues continue to exhibit significant correlation to 
the levels of activity in the wider economy as depicted 
in the graph below 
pr newswire’ s us public filing business vintage 
has also seen stronger uptake in demand generating 
revenues of £179m
wire volumes in the us over time ’000
07 06 08 09 10 11
655
500
481
579
565
622
source pr newswire analysis
the remaining pr newswire revenues are derived 
from our engagement business multiple product 
offerings reflect the increasingly rich way in which 
organisations now communicate with their audiences 
through the addition of photos and video that 
drive increased levels of audience engagement 
consequently we have seen an accompanying 
increase in the employment of mnr’ s multimedia 
news releases
pr newswire mnr trafﬁc over time ’000
08 09 10 11
30
20
09
25
source pr newswire analysis
both of these revenue drivers are being propelled by 
the structural trend globally in increasing levels of 
disclosure imposed by changing global regulatory 
regimes the continuing internationalisation of business 
and the multiplicity of channels to reach the audience 
w e see this trend as continuing over the long term 
ubm’s market position
pr newswire’ s business remains largely us focused 
with 472 of revenues generated from us 
distribution products on the basis of third party 
data we believe that pr newswire continues to 
maintain a market leading position in us wire 
distribution
1 pr newswire
2 business wire
3 prw eb
4 marketwire
5 global newswire
299
287
208
166
40
us wire market share 
1 
2
3
4
5
 
 
 
in terms of engagement revenues and the provision 
of mnr products third party analysis indicated 
that pr newswire has consolidated its market leading 
position in 2011
1 pr newswire
2 marketwire
3 business wire
4 global newswire
371
288
273
68
us mnr market share 
1 
2
3
4
 
 
 
299
wire market share in the us
pr newswire is one of the 
market leaders in the wire 
distribution market in the us
54
wire volumes in the us
t otal wire market trafﬁc in 
the us is estimated to have 
grown in 2011
a selection of pr newswire brands
  estimates based on pr newswire analysis of third party data w e are not able 
to verify that the third party data has been presented on a consistent basis
 ireach
tm ubm annual report and accounts 2011 20
section 1 2011 review
operating and financial review 
segmental performance continued
2011 performance 
pr newswire generated solid results in 2011 
the full year saw a 36 increase in headline revenue 
to £1878m 2010 £1812m and 66 growth on a 
constant currency basis operating profit declined to 
£410m 2010 £421m while margin was 218
us distribution revenue increased 46 to 
£887m on a constant currency basis due in large 
part to a 26 increase in press release volumes to 
195700 releases 2010 190700 w e estimate that 
the overall press release market in the us increased 
by 54 in terms of volumes driven largely by 
smaller competitors who focus largely on small 
and mediumsized entities our enhanced release 
offerings have been significantly aided by the growth 
in social media and the increasing widespread 
practice of using multimedia content in company 
communications and marketing enhanced releases 
enable us to better service customers’ evolving needs 
statistics continue to suggest that we are the clear 
market leader in the multimedia press release market 
in 2011 we launched ireach our competitively 
priced offering aimed at capturing a greater portion 
of the small and mediumsize enterprise space 
w e have increased efforts to migrate our us customer 
base from payasyougo arrangements to long term 
committed revenue contracts in 2011 revenues 
from long term contracts were approaching £20m 
and now account for about 15 of total us revenues 
us other revenue comprised of engagement 
and w orkflowdata decreased by 27 to £214m 
on a constant currency basis reflecting the reduced 
marketing effort associated with our legacy 
w orkflowdata products as we prepare for the 
launch of agility our new integrated workflow 
platform offset partially by increased volumes from  
multiv u’ s broadcast and production business 
us vintage revenues were up 53 reflecting in 
large part the rollout of xbrl services to our filing 
and financial printing customers
the drive to diversify our revenue base has led to 
a strong performance outside us where revenue grew 
126 to £598m 
pr newswire europe revenues rose by 385 
to £187m primarily due to the october 2010 
acquisition of the french data provider hors 
antenne and growth in distribution revenues 
in the uk the nordic countries and germany 
pr newswire continued
£1878m
t otal pr newswire revenue
grew by 36 over the year
multivu
multivu’s broadcast and multimedia production and 
distribution services help customers communicate 
their messages to their target audience in the media 
in the ﬁnancial community and to the general public 
multivu’s goal is to help customers maximize their 
return on investment in multimedia production by 
creating compelling content and distributing that 
content across a range of media platforms – reaching 
traditional radio and television media and online 
channels and encompassing emerging platforms 
such as social media and mobile devices
u for more information go to wwwmultivucom
ireach
ireach pr newswire’s selfservice online distribution 
platform offers small businesses a costefﬁcient way 
to share content with key audiences the intuitive 
platform reaches over 1000 online sites and offers 
multiple distribution options enabling users to also 
increase visibility in search engines such as google 
yahoo and bing and on social networks such as 
t witter facebook and linkedin by leveraging pr 
newswire’s industry leading online distribution network 
users can increase online engagement grow brand 
awareness drive ecommerce and generate new leads
u for more information go to wwwireachinsightscom
 ireach
tm section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 21
218
pr newswire adjusted  
operating proﬁt margin
as expected h2 2010 margin 
was a low point 2011 margin 
was a solid 218
europe’ s disclosure and news distribution business is 
evolving rapidly and consequently exhibits attractive 
growth opportunities 
revenues from emerging businesses in asia and 
latin america increased 40 to £103m due in large 
part to expansion across china revenues from 
canada newswire increased 37 to £308m due to 
an increase in distribution revenues and the rollout 
of the media v antage workflow platform 
our margin was 218 as compared to 232 
in 2010 and in line with guidance w e have made 
significant investments in our products our 
technology and in sales and marketing to drive 
continued growth in the changing competitive and 
technological environment in addition growth in 
new businesses including vintage and in emerging 
markets was dilutive to our operating margin as a 
percentage of revenues
in summary 2011 was characterised by growth in 
our core wire distribution business the development 
and successive beta launches of new products such as 
agility and ireach and expansion into high growth 
markets such as china our strategy of migrating 
payasyougo customer relationships to committed 
long term contracts has resulted in further 
enhancement of the quality of earnings particularly 
in terms of improved visibility and stability
pr newswire performance
full year
2011 
£m
full year
2010 
£m
change

change 
at cc 

underlying 
change

revenue 
 us distribution 887 882 06 46 46
 us other 214 230 7 0 27 26
 us vintage 17 9 17 0 53 91 93
 pr newswire europe 187 135 385 385 17 9
 canada newswire 308 297 37 30 02
 pr newswire asia  latam 103 99 40 84 148
total revenue 187 8 1812 36 66 42
t otal adjusted operating profit 410 421 26
t otal adjusted operating profit margin 218 232 14pts ubm annual report and accounts 2011 22
section 1 2011 review
the business model – 
ubm creates value by
creating unique high quality data sets which address 
customer needs and are essential for their operations
building deep long term relationships with 
customers and industry partners
commercialising shared data sets with a range 
of different end user segments through multiple 
subscription products and delivery channels
revenues
the diversity of businesses within our data services 
division means there are different types of revenues 
and therefore different associated drivers
broadly speaking the drivers are the number of clients 
and how much they are willing to pay to either be 
included in part of the data set or to use the data 
information and services provided
the majority of revenue comes in the form of 
annual commitments either for subscriptions or to 
a bundle of services a minority of revenue comes 
from projects
attractions of the data services industry
profitability that can be achieved from a strong 
market position
growth prospects of targeted communities as they 
become more information intensive
growth opportunities from adjacent communities 
and new geographies
potential challenges
investment to support systems and processes for 
increasingly sophisticated digital products
managing the decline of heritage print products
governments and other bodies making source data 
more readily available
increased competition from low cost ‘new model’ 
competitors or significant new entrants
operating and financial review 
segmental performance continued
data services 
1  emerging markets constituents are the nong10 countries – most notably 
for ubm china brazil india thailand singapore indonesia malaysia 
philippines mexico and uae 
our data services business provides high quality data market 
and technical intelligence and services to help customers make 
critical business decisions 
1 n america
2 europe
3 uk
4 emerging markets
1
5 ro w
432
255
149
117
47
geographic split 
1 
2
3
4
5
 
 
 
 
1 health
2 t echnology  ip 
3 t rade  t ransport
4 paper
5 other
380
262
206
78
74
community split 
1 
2
3
4
5
 
 
 
 
06 07 08 09 10 11
179
168
143
91
185 187
revenue £m 
06 07 08 09 10 11
adjusted operating proﬁt margins 
208
189 184
238
185
162 section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 23
the marketplace 
there is increasing demand in both the public and 
commercial sectors to make critical decisions on the 
basis of the best available data and market intelligence 
this increasing ambition of our clients creates 
demand for high quality data sets information 
portals data manipulation and decision support 
tools and related services this market opportunity 
supports ubm data services in its drive to be the 
foremost provider of indispensible and custom 
subscription based data sets and analytics to selected 
professional communities
pwc provide research on the ‘business 
information’ segment within the b2b marketplace for 
data analytics encompassing a broad array of sectors 
including financials marketing and industry data 
based products constitute the most significant part 
of the b2b marketplace and in 2011 was valued at 
779bn 2010 760bn market softening in 2010 
of 52 was followed by growth in 2011 25 
pwc estimate that 2012 will see a return to growth 
of 51 with improving single digit growth over the 
medium to long term
with regards to the ‘directory advertising’ 
market pwc estimate the market in 2011 to be 
valued at 270bn 2010 280bn of which 816 
constitutes the market for print directory advertising 
over the next four years it is predicted that print 
directory advertising revenues may weaken by 
93 2011–2015 cagr while digital directory 
advertising revenues will increase by 211  
2011–2015 cagr as endusers reinforce the 
general migration from print to digital
ubm’s offerings
within the health sector vidal provides drug 
information and clinical decision support services 
to the french healthcare sector and is the largest 
individual brand within data services in conjunction 
with the growth in demand we have seen for our 
hospital reference solutions we have observed very 
strong growth in our more sophisticated integrated 
data solutions this trend has featured in the 
performance of both vidal and mims our drug 
information system focused on the asiapacific 
markets
our strongest business in the t echnology 
space remains ubm t echinsights which provides 
intellectual property and technical intelligence 
data services to the semiconductor and portable 
electronics arena 
within our t rade  t ransport offering 
piers and oag remain our most significant brands 
piers provides market leading data and analytics 
reports to the importexport space oag focuses 
on the provision of data and analytics relating to 
flight scheduling for the air transport space
risi is the leading information provider for the 
paper industry the company works with clients in 
the pulp and paper wood products and timber 
sectors abi barbour serves the uk construction 
sector and maintains its joint market leadership 
position in the provision of data and information 
in relation to uk construction projects
779bn
business information
pwc estimate in 2011 
the market is worth nearly 
78bn
51cagr
marketplace growth
pwc estimate the business 
information segment will grow 
between 2011 and 2015
a selection of ubm data services brands
1 9 1 cagr 1 9 1 cagr
digital directory advertising
pwc estimate digital  
directory advertising will  
grow signiﬁcantly between 
2011 and 2015
21 1 cagr


Summary:
 ubm annual report and accounts 2011 6
section 1 2011 review
david levin  
chief executive officer
chief executive officer’ s statement
record results in strong biennial year
operating and financial review
£9723m
revenues
up £831m
  please refer to explanation of ubm’ s business measures on page 51
2011 results
ubm had a strong year in 2011 revenues grew 93 
to £9723m 2010 £8892m and adjusted operating 
profit increased 175 to £2019m 2010 £1718m 
the adjusted operating profit margin over the year 
was 208 2010 193 reflecting the strong 
performance in our events businesses and also the 
consistent on plan delivery of our other businesses 
adjusted profit before tax increased to £1774m 
2010 £1564m fully diluted adjusted eps 
was 568p an increase of 66p over the prior year 
2010 502p
2011 achievements
w e have made great progress across all our businesses 
in the course of 2011 further acquisitions notably 
of events businesses and disposals of print assets 
together with organic growth initiatives continue our 
strategy of focusing on attractive communities and 
growing economies product investment around pr 
newswire and our data services businesses will raise 
the value of our business in the coming years
the strength and resilience of our events business 
continues to underpin overall group performance 
accounting for 409 2010 349 of group 
revenue and 625 2010 517 of group 
operating profit excluding corporate costs in 2011 
we successfully delivered over 400 events 2010 
over 300 events were organised in 31 different 
countries 2010 21 countries and there were 11 new 
geoadapted events events floor space for our annual 
events was 12 million m
2
 in 2011 compared to 
09 million m
2
 in 2010 and the number of attendees 
at our events grew from 12 million to 15 million up 
25 further illustrating our determination to offer 
an ever bigger and better facetoface experience to 
the business communities we serve
our ‘gem’ initiative driving best practice across 
both new and geoadapted events is focused on 
enhancing the performance of our ‘live media’ 
business both around the quality of our product 
offering and the resulting customer experience 
underlying growth in the events business was 
146 and this reflects the growing strength of our 
core franchises 2011 also saw the acquisition of eight 
eventsrelated businesses for £712m the most 
notable acquisition was ecobuild the world’ s leading 
sustainable building exhibition and the fastest 
growing trade event in the uk for an initial cash 
consideration of £31m and a performance based 
consideration of up to £20m ecobuild fits well with 
the existing ubm built environment portfolio with 
strong potential for multiple geoadaptations a first 
edition has now been launched for china in 2012 
ecobuild will run in march 2012 and is on track with 
our acquisition case other acquisitions in the events 
space during the year have helped to consolidate our 
drive to leverage markets and communities exhibiting 
longterm structural growth characteristics
biennial events in 2011 have delivered £362m in 
revenues compared to £185m in 2010 comparing 
our 2011 biennial events including marintec and 
fie to the same portfolio’ s performance in 2009 
revenue for these shows has grown by 27 section 1 2011 review „
section 2 governance „
section 3 financial statements „
ubm annual report and accounts 2011 7
£2019m
adjusted operating proﬁt
up 175
£1774m
adjusted proﬁt before tax
up 134
568p
fully diluted adjusted eps
up 131
pr newswire revenues increased by 36 during 
2011 to £1878m 2010 £1812m our us 
distribution revenue increased 06 to £887m while 
us revenues other than distribution comprised of 
engagement w orkflowdata and filing services 
decreased by 18 to £393m 
pr newswire’ s global operating margin was 
218 which while down on the previous year’ s 
232 was ahead of the target we had set of 208 
and reflected a shift in mix as well as significant 
investments in our products our technology and 
in sales and marketing to drive continued growth 
in the changing competitive and technological 
environments expansion of our newer businesses in 
europe china and in other emerging markets affects 
pr newswire’ s margin similarly growth in vintage 
printing and filing revenues also has a dilutive effect 
on margins pr newswire’ s nonus revenue 
increased to 318 of total global revenues from 
293 in 2010 and this represented a 126 growth 
over the year 
overall data services revenues of £1870m 
2010 £1847m were robust in 2011 operating 
margins achieved were 162 2010 185 in line 
with guidance provided to the market softness in 
the margin was partially driven by the anticipated 
ongoing decline in higher margin print directory 
advertising together with the continuing focused 
investment in developing online and workflow 
products continued weakness in t rade  t ransport 
was somewhat offset by strong advances elsewhere 
most notably in t echnology  ip but also in health 
and pulp  paper 
importantly the structural migration from print 
data to digital formats continues to be a prominent 
feature of the revenue mix with online data and 
services this year accounting for 695 of data 
services’ revenues 2010 667 
in 2011 as with the previous year the online 
segment was one of our fastest growing segments 
up by 279 to £885m 2010 £692m driven 
primarily by strong banner advertising and continued 
traction in the roll out of our attractive new online 
communities and digital environments 2011 has 
been another exceptionally strong year for digital 
environments with the successful delivery of over 250 
2010 103 discrete events across the globe 
digital environments continue to expand from the 
initial virtual events that delivered online trade shows 
to delivering digital experiences across multiple 
environments and communities including 
recruitment and incompany communication 
w e continue to see digital environments as symbiotic 
to our live in person events business
print revenues fell 222 during the year in line 
with previous guidance to the market as a segment 
print now accounts for 116 2010 162 of total 
group revenues reflecting the success of our strategy 
to rationalise our print business disposals during the 
year included the french healthcare newspaper 
‘quotidien du medecin’ and its related weekly 
and monthly titles as well as the uk ‘publican’  
and two us healthcare journals as a result of the 
rationalisation process segmental margins now stand 
at 54 2010 69 subsequent to the year end we 
made further disposals notably of farmers’ guardian 
and pulse decreases in printrelated operating profit 
are now being made up by increases in operating 
profit derived from digital subscriptions
ubm has gone through tremendous change 
in the past five years – in its business mix the 
geographies in which it does business and also in 
developing an increasingly distinctive and open 
culture i would like to state my personal thanks to 
our chairman john botts who will stand down later 
in the year for his advice and support to me over the 
past five years while we have gone through all of these 
developments ubm has benefitted hugely from his 
infectious energy his deep understanding of the 
business and his huge passion for its people and 
i personally have benefitted from his counsel
david levin 
chief executive ofﬁcer
ubm plc
11 10
2011 revenue by segment £m
events
pr newswire
data services
marketing services – online 
marketing services – print 
total
 
 397
188
187
88
112
972
2011
310
181
185
69
144
889
2010