Pearson Delivers Confident Predictions For 2005

British publishing firm, Pearson, has made upbeat predictions for its performance throughout 2005, stating that pretax loss for the first half of the year was lower than expected, leading to confidence in the company achieving “strong growth” in 2005 as a whole.

Pearson, which publishes the Financial Times and Penguin books, recorded a pretax loss of £9 million in the six months to 30 June, compared to a loss of £16 million previously.

The company saw sales revenues rise to £1.6 billion from £1.5 billion, with losses per share of 1.9p, compared to 2.8p a year earlier.

Commenting on the results, Pearson chief executive, Marjorie Scardino, said: “We are very pleased with the start we’ve made on 2005. We still have the majority of the year’s trading ahead of us, but the first-half momentum supports our confidence that we will meet our financial goals.”

The company’s flagship newspaper, the Financial Times, saw advertising revenues increase by 5% year on year, with the publisher expecting the loss-making paper to break even for the year as a whole.

Underlying sales of the newspaper rose by 10%, while operating profit rose to £33 million from £7 million in 2004. The company states that there has been “good growth” in all of its businesses, with the education business buoyed by a strong market, pushing Pearson Education sales up 14%, while Higher Education sales rose by 5%.

The publisher’s books division, Penguin, made what the company described as a “solid start” to the year, meeting expectations and showing good growth in the UK.

Elsewhere, Penguin’s American operations continued to make what Pearson said was “good progress”, but continued to struggle against a weak mass market for books.

Earlier this year saw Pearson quash rumours of its intention to sell the Financial Times, with Dennis Stevenson, outgoing chairman of publishing group, stating that the company is “always looking at its options,” but confirming “we are not considering selling the FT” (see Pearson Will Not Sell Financial Times).

Pearson: 01223 350555 www.pearson.co.uk