United Business Media PLC (UBM.LN) Friday said it is on track to meet full-year forecasts as the events and publishing group posted a 7.3% rise in first-half pretax profit, but remained cautious about the outlook.

"While we see evidence of improved trading conditions in many of the markets and geographies in which we operate, we remain cautious regarding the pace, depth and sustainability of the wider macro-economic recovery." Chief Executive David Levin said in a statement.

Earnings before interest, tax and amortization for the six months ended June 30 rose to GBP91.1 million from GBP84.9 million a year earlier. Adjusted operating profit was up 6.3% year-on-year to GBP83.2 million.

However, group revenue fell 0.2% to GBP434.3 million from GBP435 million. Events revenue was up 1.5%, while data, services and online revenue rose 2.3%. Targeting, distribution and monitoring revenue rose 7.4%. However, print revenue was down 13.9% and the company said it is continuing to take action to address the impact of a shift away from print after closing four titles in the first half..

UBM also said Friday it has acquired the Shanghai International Children-Baby-Maternity Products Expo and related businesses for up to $16.1 million. The company added that it aims to make further acquisitions in the second half of the fiscal year.

The company, which publishes a range of business titles, owns news distribution service PR Newswire and runs an events and conferences business, kept its interim dividend unchanged at 6 pence.

Publishing and events groups such as UBM, Reed Elsevier PLC (REL.LN) and Informa PLC ( INF.LN) have suffered from customers tightening budgets during the recession, as well as from weak advertising markets, but are starting to show cautious optimism about a recovery.

Anglo-Dutch publishing and events group Reed Elsevier Thursday cheered the market with better-than-expected first half results and said it had seen an improvement in the general economic environment although it warned that "recovery will be gradual as conditions remain constrained in many of our markets."

Informa more than doubled first-half pretax profit Tuesday and boosted its interim dividend by 25% as it expects growth in the second half to be driven by continued improvement in its events and training division and stabilization of subscription revenue in its publishing division.

However, it did caution that recovery in the events sector is at an early stage.

United Business Media shares closed Thursday at 573 pence, valuing the company at GBP1.4 billion.

-By Tommy Stubbington, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9268; tommy.stubbington@dowjones.com and Simon Zekaria, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207 842-9410; simon.zekaria@dowjones.com