The British group, which also owns the Financial Times newspaper, said on Friday that sales at constant exchange rates, excluding its Penguin publishing arm which it has merged with Random House, and Mergermarket increased by 2 percent to 900 million pounds ($1.5 billion).

It said the impact of the strong pound and restructuring charges would result in first-half adjusted earnings per share (EPS) falling on a year ago, but it would still come in between 62 pence and 67 pence for the full year.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Kate Holton)