Pearson PLC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pearson plc. | |
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| Type of Company | Public (LSE: PSON; NYSE: PSO) |
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| Founded | 1844 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| Key people | Lord Dennis Stevenson, Chairman Glen Moreno, Chairman Dame Marjorie M. Scardino, CEO, Michael, Viscount Cowdray |
| Industry | Publishing |
| Products | Books |
| Revenue |  $7,514.0 million USD (2004) |
| Employees | 33,389 (2004) |
| 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 today are at 80 Strand, the former Shell Mex House.
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[edit] History
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. In 1968, it purchased the publisher Longman in 1971 the Penguin Group, 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 BSB, choosing expensive methods and technology, was superseded by Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television, which used proven technology and leased transponders on Astra satellites.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.
[edit] Criticisms
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.
[edit] Holdings
[edit] Book Publishing
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, Viking, Wharton School Publishing
[edit] Educational Publishing
Prentice Hall, Pearson Scott Foresman, Pearson Digital Learning, Pearson Learning Group, AGS Globe, Allyn & Bacon, Addison-Wesley, Longman, Adobe Press, Que Publishing, Sams Publishing, Cisco Press, New Riders, Peachpit Press, National Computer Systems, Family Education Network, Family Education, TeacherVision, LessonLab, Wharton School Publishing, Infoplease.com, and Factmonster.com
[edit] Periodicals
- The Financial Times Group
- FTSE International (50% stake)
- The Economist Group (50% stake)
