Agreement with Bloomberg

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 14 December 2001 BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC Bloomsbury License Who's Who to Bloomberg LP London 14 December 2001: Bloomsbury Publishing plc is pleased to announce its first database licence partnership for Who's Who with Bloomberg LP, the market leader in the provision of global business information. The content will be available electronically to subscribers to the Bloomberg Professional Service. Following Bloomsbury's acquisition in July 2000 of A&C Black, publishers of Who's Who, the content of Who's Who has been transferred into a full electronic database and is now available to be licensed electronically to major corporate clients. Who's Who 2002 will also be published in print form at the end of January by A&C Black. Nigel Newton, Chief Executive of Bloomsbury, said today : ' I am delighted that the benefits of Bloomsbury's electronic and content management expertise have so quickly been allied to A&C Black's authoritative reference publishing. We are delighted to be working with Bloomberg on this project. Today's announcement highlights the value of creating and owning major branded databases. Alongside the Encarta World English Database, the business information reference data base we are creating with the Economist Group, and the ELT (English Language Teaching) Dictionary Database project with Macmillan, Bloomsbury is very successfully building a highly flexible, long-term publishing resource.' ENDS Contact Bloomsbury Publishing plc Simon Forrest, Impact Consultancy Ltd 020 7479 4770 or 07885 317746 John Barrington-Carver Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Bloomsbury Publishing is one of Europe's leading independent publishing houses with a reputation for a high quality management team and a highly valuable portfolio of intellectual properties. A&C Black Publishers Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. www.bloomsbury-ir.co.uk Bloomberg LP Bloomberg is an international news and information organization. The company provides news, data and analysis to the business community and media outlets. Bloomberg provides real-time pricing, historical pricing, indicative data, analytics and electronic communications 24 hours a day through the BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL service. Bloomberg media includes television, radio, publishing and Internet operations worldwide. www.bloomberg.com Who's Who Who's Who has been published annually since 1849. With over 30,000 entries, it is the recognised source book of information on people of influence and interest in all fields. The 154th edition will be published in January 2002.