Existing shareholder Exor increases its holding from 4.7% to 43.4% to become the largest single shareholder in the publishing group
Pearson has sold its 50% stake in the Economist Group, publisher of the Economist, to existing shareholders for £469m in cash.
The deal, a fait accompli following Pearson’s sale of the Financial Times to Nikkei for £844m last month, will see a major change in the power structure of the major shareholders that control the Economist Group.
Continue reading...Rupert Pennant-Rea sat pensively in the 14th floor boardroom above London’s upmarket St James’s and soaked up the grand views across Green Park. Colleagues greeted him warmly as they shuffled into the room. As chairman and a former editor of the Economist, Pennant-Rea was acutely aware of just what a momentous decision his board was about to take.
It was last Monday evening and the magazine and research group was poised to agree to support a deal that would result in only the second significant change of ownership in the Economist’s 172-year history.
Continue reading...The eye-popping sum paid by the Agnellis and Rothschilds shows how much the rich value high-quality private assets that will make long-term profits
No self-respecting brand manager would ever name a newspaper the Economist. You might as well name it “dry and boring eat-your-greens stuff which you probably won’t even understand”.
And yet, improbably, the Economist is today worth an eye-popping £938m ($1.5bn). That’s six times the value of the Washington Post, which comes out seven days a week and which has must-read status in the most important political capital in the world. It’s even more than the £844m ($1.3bn) that Nikkei Group paid for the Financial Times.
Continue reading...Education publisher, which is in the process of selling off the Financial Times, blames ‘challenging’ market as it suffers biggest share price fall since 1987
Pearson suffered its biggest share slump in decades on Wednesday as the education publisher’s stock price crashed almost 16% after issuing a full-year profits warning.
Pearson, which is in the process of selling off the Financial Times and its stake in the Economist, saw its biggest share price fall since the stock market crash of 1987.
Continue reading...Former chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly to take over from Glen Moreno at global education company
Pearson has appointed Sidney Taurel, the former chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, as its new chairman.
Taurel, who is also a board director at IBM and McGraw Hill Financial, will takeover as non-executive chairman of the parent of the Financial Times on 1 January.
Continue reading...Sale marks end of an era for former FT owner as it exits newspaper publishing business after selling its stake to Russian entrepreneur
Pearson, which recently agreed to offload the Financial Times, and the publisher of the Wall Street Journal have sold off their stakes in Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.
For Pearson the sale represents its final move out of newspaper publishing, having already sold its 50% stake in the Economist and just weeks from completing a deal for Nikkei to takeover the FT, although it still owns a minority stake in book publisher Penguin Random House.
Continue reading...World’s biggest education publisher aims to make £350m in cost savings by the end of 2017
Pearson is to cut 4,000 jobs after issuing its second profit warning in three months.
The world’s biggest education publisher said it aimed for annual savings of £350m by the end of 2017 and it would end its long-held policy of increasing its dividend each year.
Continue reading...Zanny Minton Beddoes on new owners, battling Brexit, and making a 173-year-old title work online
Zanny Minton Beddoes’ office may have a worn and old-fashioned feel, indeed it wouldn’t be surprising if it turned out it hasn’t had a makeover since the Economist’s arrival in 1964, but she couldn’t be more focused on the shiny digital future.
“We don’t want to be the grandpa at the disco,” says Minton Beddoes, the first female editor in the business magazine’s 173-year history. “The bedrock of this place is the weekly Economist but in the 21st century that is no longer enough.”
Continue reading...Magazine plans to move next summer to a London headquarters, overlooking the Thames, that meets ‘the needs of a 21st century media company’
The Economist has chosen its new home. It is to move next year into the Adelphi Building on London’s Victoria Embankment.
Zanny Minton Beddoes, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, points out that the new headquarters will be “just steps from where The Economist’s first offices were in 1843.”
Continue reading...Challenging trading conditions continue to knock world’s largest educational publisher
The full extent of the difficulties Pearson is facing following the sale of the Financial Times to focus on education has been laid bare, as jittery investors sent its share price tumbling 10% after the company reported worse than expected sales.
Pearson’s chief executive, John Fallon, sold the FT in 2015, as well as its 50% stake in the publisher of the Economist, for more than £1.3bn to focus on Pearson’s educational publishing business.
Continue reading...Management have moved to reassure staff and writers that selling the 47% holding will not affect business, but authors and agents express unease
Authors and staff have reacted cautiously to news that Pearson is to sell its stake in Penguin Random House (PRH), the world’s biggest publisher and home to some of the most successful brands in books, among them Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Oliver and The Girl on the Train.
PRH moved quickly to address fears among staff that the sale of the 47% share to German-owned Bertelsmann would affect jobs. In a statement, global chief executive Markus Dohle promised it would be “business as usual for us”. He added: “Both Pearson and Bertelsmann continue to be very supportive of our strategy and our success, and both have been valued shareholders for us.”
Continue reading...Pre-tax losses soar to £2.6bn as group – planning to sell its Penguin Random House stake – is hit by slump in US textbook sales
Pearson has reported a pre-tax loss of £2.6bn for 2016, the biggest in its history, after a slump at its US education operation.
The world’s largest education publisher, which in January saw almost £2bn wiped from its stock market value after issuing its fifth profit warning in two years, reported the record loss after taking a £2.55bn non-cash charge for “impairment of goodwill reflecting trading pressures” in its North American businesses.
Investors’ revolt against deal for John Fallon comes after educational publisher reports largest annual loss in its history
More than six out of 10 Pearson shareholders have voted against the £1.5m pay package awarded to the embattled chief executive, John Fallon, after the educational publisher reported the largest annual loss in its history.
Fallon received a 20% pay rise last year, including a bonus of £343,000, despite the company recording a record loss of £2.6bn.
Continue reading...Further pure maths and statistics tests affected as police open criminal investigation into claims relating to other exams this summer
An examination board investigating allegations of leaks has been forced to make last-minute changes to two A-level papers that were taken on Monday after another apparent breach of security.
Pearson, which owns the Edexcel exam board, said it had replaced questions in its statistics and further pure maths papers after the board was informed that some students “had information they should not have had”. It also confirmed that police had opened a criminal investigation into earlier allegations of malpractice relating to an A-level maths paper.
Continue reading...The beleaguered FTSE 100 firm strengthens balance sheet by selling a 22% stake to Bertelsmann in deal valuing the publishing giant at $3.55bn
Pearson has sold a 22% stake in Penguin Random House, the world’s biggest publisher, with titles ranging from Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Oliver and The Girl on the Train. The deal values Penguin at $3.55bn (£2.75bn).
Pearson put its holding in PRH up for sale in January after issuing a string of profit warnings in its educational publishing business, and has sold the stake to partner Bertelsmann.
Continue reading...The education business sold nearly half its stake in the publisher to Bertelsmann, but much of the proceeds will be reinvested
Pearson is still going to own a quarter of Penguin Random House, so it’s not too late to hope that it can learn to tell a story like it is. Please, drop this bland corporate talk about “rebasing” the dividend. The cut in the offering is from 52p to 17p a share, or thereabouts, which is too severe to dress in neutral language. Pearson’s status as an investment one might wish to own for income is about to be obliterated.
The shame is that Pearson’s sale of a 22% stake in PRH has been secured on terms that look respectable, at least in circumstances where there was only one possible buyer – German media group Bertelsmann, which owns 53% to Pearson’s current 47%. Pearson will collect $1bn (£778m) in cash, via a combination of the sale of the stake and a dividend, in a transaction that values PRH at about seven times its top-line earnings. That valuation feels roughly right, which is why Pearson’s shares initially rose.
Continue reading...Cost-cutting move aims to save educational publisher about £300m a year with 10% cut in global staff after biggest loss in history in 2016
Pearson is to cut 3,000 jobs as the embattled company looks to slash costs after a slump at its US higher education business.
The world’s largest education company, which has issued five profit warnings in the past four years, intends to axe about 10% of its 32,000 global workforce by the end of 2019.
Exam board Edexcel launches investigation after Twitter post offers full paper for £70
An investigation has been launched after an A-level maths paper was circulated online before the exam.
Images of the test paper by Edexcel appeared on social media on Thursday afternoon. The exam board’s parent company, Pearson, said the images “were circulated in a very limited way” before students sat the exam on Friday.
Continue reading...Academic publisher hopes to convince students to pay to access online materials
The era of students using their loans to buy expensive textbooks upfront could be coming to an end, after the academic publisher Pearson announced a shift towards a Netflix-style subscription-based model.
The British company has for years profited from the demand for specialist textbooks at US universities, which students can be required to purchase despite them sometimes costing hundreds of dollars.
Continue reading...New powers will block ferries that pay crews below minimum wage from UK ports, which P&O will probably find acceptable
Grant Shapps sounded terribly pleased with his nine-point response to the P&O Ferries debacle, but it is hard to see how any of the transport secretary’s measures will force the company to reinstate the 800 workers it sacked without consultation a fortnight ago, which seemed the government’s aim only a few days ago.
The toughest new policy will create powers to block ferries with crews paid less than the minimum wage from British ports. The Harbours Act of 1965 will be revised via primary legislation; until then, port operators will be told to refuse access to non-compliant ferries.
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