Life after Potter
The BBC reports Thursday that Bloomsbury, the British publisher of the Harry Potter series, announced that export orders were up 17 percent for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last installment of the series. While their annual profits dropped 74 percent in 2006, a year without a Potter book, the company says that it has a solid plan for life after a publishing phenomenon.
In a statement Bloomsbury said it was confident that the company had developed a strategy for the "medium and longterm." British analysts weren't quite so buoyant. The BBC quoted a Hargreaves Landsown equity anaylist Keith Bowman saying, "Whilst Harry Potter remains a key ingredient in the group's future success, management are now having to look beyond the initial euphoria created, with new authors and acquisitions being sought."
Bloomsbury also announced it has set a date of Oct. 1 for the release of a box-set of all seven books.