Bullish Pearson heralds record £592m earnings

Published on Monday 26 February 2007 11:52

PEARSON, the publishing group which owns the Penguin book brand and the Financial Times, today heralded a set of record results as operating profit grew 15 per cent to £592 million.

The firm, which added overall sales had risen eight per cent to 4.4 billion, said it expected the FT Group - which includes the Financial Times and the related website ft.com, as well as French newspaper Les Echos and FT Deutschland - to continue strong profit growth into 2007.

The profit figure was slightly ahead of the guidance Pearson gave in January.

The FT newspaper and ft.com saw sales rise eight per cent to 238m, while profits were up from 2m to 11m and advertising revenues were up nine per cent.

Pearson, the biggest educational publisher in the world, said it had spent 363m on acquisitions in 2006, mainly in its education division. It added the acquisitions contributed 147m of sales and 17m of operating profit to its 2006 results.

The company said it planned to reduce its pension deficit by injecting 100m of the cash proceeds from the sale of its Government Solutions business into its UK pension scheme during 2007.

Chief executive Marjorie Scardino said: "This is another strong set of results. We have built market-leading businesses and invested consistently in their content, technology and international expansion. That strategy is paying off with sustained growth in sales, margins, earnings and returns, and we expect 2007 to be another good year."