Pearson PLC

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Pearson plc.

Type	Public (LSE: PSON NYSE: PSO)
Founded	1844
Headquarters	London, England, UK
Key people	Lord (Dennis) Stevenson, Chairman Glen Moreno, Chairman Dame Marjorie M. Scardino, CEO, Michael, Viscount Cowdray
Industry	Publishing
Products	Books
Revenue	£4,137 million GBP (2006)
Operating income	£540 million GBP (2006)
Net income	£469 million GBP (2006)
Employees	32,203 (2005)
Website	www.pearson.com

Pearson plc (LSE: PSON; NYSE: PSO) is a London-based media conglomerate. It is the largest book publisher in the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand, and the second largest in the US and Canada. In 2003 it had sales of £4,048m ($7,246m) and operating profits of £490m ($877m). Marjorie Scardino has been CEO since 1997. Its headquarters is at 80 Strand, the former Shell Mex House.

1 History
2 Criticisms
3 Holdings
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Pearson was founded by Samuel Pearson in 1844 as a building and engineering company called S. Pearson & Son. In 1880, control passed to his grandson Weetman, an engineer who turned it into one of the world's largest construction companies. By 1920, it was a holding company with businesses in building, oil drilling and refining, and finance. That year, it purchased a number of local newspapers in Britain, which it combined to form the Westminster Press. In 1957, it bought the Financial Times and a 50% stake in The Economist. It purchased the publisher Longman in 1968, the Penguin Group in 1971, and the education business of Simon & Schuster in 1998.

At the end of the 1980s, Pearson participated in the British Satellite Broadcasting consortium. BSB, choosing expensive methods and technology, was superseded by Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television, which used proven technology and leased transponders on Astra satellites. This allowed Sky to gain an important foothold in the multichannel market and the eventual "merger" was effectively a takeover by Sky, the new company was renamed British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) in late 1990.

During the 1990s, Pearson acquired a number of TV production and broadcasting assets and rid itself of most of its non-media assets. In January 2003, Pearson sold their 22% stake in RTL Group, the largest commercial television and radio broadcaster in the EU.

On 4th May 2007 Pearson, announced that it had agreed to acquire Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International from Reed Elsevier for $950m in cash.^[1] Due to Pearson's market-leading position in the US textbook market they were not interested in the main Harcourt business on account of regulatory concerns.^[2]

Pearson sold its international government services (Pearson Government Solutions) division to Veritas Capital. The new stand-alone company, Vangent, Inc, has its international headquarters in Arlington, VA, with offices in London, Rotherham, Yorkshire, and Canada. The sale was finalized on March 9th, 2007. [1]

In January 2007 it was widely reported that plans are afoot for Pearson to be taken over by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which drove the shares to new 5-year highs.^[3]

In 2003 Pearson formed a partnership with Edexcel, a British examining board, to set up a new company called London Qualifications Ltd, which was 75% owned by Pearson and 25% by the Edexcel Foundation. In 2005 Edexcel became the only large examination board to be held in private hands, when Pearson PLC took complete control. Edexcel's reincarnation as a profit-making company has led to criticisms and calls into question conflict of interest within the education system, as a private publisher runs an examining board which relies on set texts for many of its courses. However, Edexcel has also continued to endorse textbooks published by non-Pearson companies.

Most Pearson trade publishing is done by the Penguin Group, which includes international imprints such as Allen Lane, Avery, Berkley Books, Dial, Dutton, Dorling Kindersley, Grosset & Dunlap, Hamish Hamilton, Ladybird, Plume, Puffin, Penguin, Penguin Putnam Inc., Michael Joseph, Riverhead, Rough Guides, and Viking.

Some of Pearson's educational publishing imprints include Pearson Longman, Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, Pearson Scott Foresman.

The Financial Times Group
FTSE International (50% stake)
The Economist Group (50% stake)

Infoplease is a website devoted to "providing authoritative answers to all kinds of factual questions since 1938 first as popular radio quiz show, then starting in 1947 as an annual almanac, and since 1998 on the internet..."

New York Institute of Finance provides, instructor-led Financial Training for over 85 years. Courses are available in Midtown and Downtown Manhattan, Stamford, CT, eLearning and Virtual Classroom.