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'Excellent performance' at Pearson

22.01.08

Pearson will announce "record profits" for 2007, according to the company's latest trading update, with a third consecutive year of underlying earnings growth "in the mid-teens or higher".

The company revealed today (22nd January) that its education division would report its "strongest year ever" in its preliminary results for 2007, and that Penguin combined "its ongoing operating improvements with an outstanding publishing performance" in 2007.

Pearson's trading momentum continued in the fourth quarter of 2007, and the company expects to announce "strong cash generation and a further underlying improvement in our return on invested capital" in addition to record profits.

Pearson's businesses had achieved "good sales growth and margin improvement", and its business information and consumer publishing division finishing the year "ahead of expectations".

The company, which generates approximately two-thirds of its sales in US dollars, expects to report full-year adjusted earnings "at or above the top end of the range of current market expectations", despite the significant weakening of the US dollar during the year.

Pearson chief executive Marjorie Scardino said: "This is another excellent performance across all our businesses and on all our financial measures. We have produced another record year and our third consecutive year of underlying earnings growth in the mid-teens or higher. Over this period we have changed the shape of Pearson, invested in our future growth and made the company more efficient and more resilient. Those moves make us confident that we will sustain our financial and competitive progress in 2008."

Pearson will announce its preliminary results for 2007 on 3rd March 2008.

Penguin pearson Pearson Education

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