Pearson Sells Law Publishing Business For £70m

Pearson media group has sold its law and tax publishing business to Thomson Corporation for £70 million. Today’s Financial Times, also owned by Pearson, reports that the sale is the latest in a series conducted under Pearson’s strategy of pruning speciality publishing businesses that are not market leaders in their sectors.

Last year the law and tax publishing business made an operating profit of £4.7 million on sales of £21.7 million. Pearson also sold Churchill Livingstone, a medical publisher, in August last year (subscribers see Profits Up 22% At BSkyB).

Pearson has also announced that it is to integrate its business publishing divisions under the one brand of the Financial Times. The Financial Times Group will replace the Information Division and will comprise the FT newspaper, other FT branded businesses and Pearson’s overseas business publications. Stephen Hill, chief executive of the FT paper, is to become chief executive of the augmented group.

This reorganisation coincides with a big push for the Financial Times in the US; Pearson chief executive Marjorie Scardino is hoping that the FT can take on the might of the Wall Street Journal as a source of business news.

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