Asked to name the biggest media company in Europe, I doubt that many would come up with Relx, not least because it is better known under its previous name, Reed Elsevier.
It is bigger than WPP or Thomson Reuters and more than twice the size of Pearson, with or without the Financial Times. The company is often overlooked, though, because it is entirely business to business, providing technical journals and analytical data to academics, banks, insurers and others.
Relx, as we must learn to call it, also has a reputation for dull, plodding predictability. This is no bad thing; as I have suggested, it comes into the category of the consolidators, grinding out slightly higher revenues and margins year after year.
The strong