PUBLISHER Oxford University Press has transferred a record £100m to Oxford University after announcing a hike in sales.
The company, which employs 1,400 people in Walton Street, saw a 4.8 per cent rise in sales of its books and journals, despite the economic downturn. As a department of the university, OUP benefits from charitable status and its profits - called a surplus - are fed back to the university.
Over the last 11 years, OUP has transferred £478m to the university. In the past, the money has helped the university to buy the Radcliffe Infirmary site, and to fund a £25m new book depository to be built in Swindon. This year's contribution is helping to pay for the £75.6m plan to refurbish the New Bodleian building in Broad Street.
OUP chief executive Henry Reece, who retired last week after 11 years at the helm, said: "The Press continues to make financial transfers that support the work of other departments of the university in such areas as scholarships for international postgraduate students, funding for early stage research, and library refurbishment. The larger than usual transfer last year was simply the result of the timing of transfers across financial years." However, he said there were worrying signs that universities were already reducing spending on library books and journals. He warned: "Given current difficult economic circumstances that we currently face, it should not be expected that this level of surplus generation will necessarily continue."
Despite difficult trading conditions, turnover for 2008/9 rose to £578.7m and pre-tax profit was up six per cent to £88.7m, compared to £83.7m last year. UK sales rose from £82.3m to £84.7m. The company's New York office laid off 60 people at the beginning of the year, reducing its workforce by almost 10 percent in response to the weakened US retail market. Dr Reece said: "We seek to be no less efficient as a business than commercial publishers, but we are in pursuit of very different ends. Our success has been built on the very best publishing, and that publishing in turn has been informed by a belief that what we do matters."
He added: "That commitment to the values of the university, to the idea that scholarship and education matter, will ensure the Press continues to flourish. At a time when many university presses in the US are in difficulty, our size and geographical spread lets us continue to provide opportunities for dissemination of the highest-quality scholarship and education." Dr Reece is being replaced by Nigel Portwood, who joins from the Penguin group on Monday.