Pearson PLC

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Pearson plc.

Type	Public (LSE: PSON NYSE: PSO)
Founded	1844
Headquarters	London, England, UK
Key people	Lord (Dennis) Stevenson, Chairman Glen Moreno, Chairman Dame Marjorie M. Scardino, CEO, Michael, Viscount Cowdray
Industry	Publishing
Products	Books
Revenue	▲£4,218 million GBP (2007)
Operating income	▲£634 million GBP (2007)
Net income	▲£310 million GBP (2007)
Employees	29,000 (2007)
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. The headquarters for Pearson is at 80 Strand, the former Shell Mex House.

1 History
2 Criticisms
3 Structure and holdings
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[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. It purchased the publisher Longman in 1968, the Penguin Group in 1971, and the education business of Simon & Schuster in 1998.

Pearson entered the assessment and testing business with the purchase of National Computer Systems (NCS) in 2000. Pearson subsequently purchased a series of testing and assessment businesses, beginning with Edexcel in 2003, Knowledge Technologies in 2004, AGS in 2005, and National Evaluation Systems (NES) and Promissor in 2006. On January 30, 2008 Pearson acquired Harcourt Assessment (formerly known as The Psychological Corporation).^{[citation needed]} The combination of acquisitions and organic growth have made Pearson the largest assessment and testing provider in the United States. The Educational Measurement group, founded as Measurement Research Center in 1953, is the leading provider of large-scale testing services and this business has greatly benefited from the federal No Child Left Behind legislation that mandates summative testing of students for accountability. On February 14, 2008 Pearson announced the sale of its Pearson Data Management Division to M&F Worldwide, the corporate parent of Scantron Corporation, and this division is being folded into and managed by Scantron Corporation.^[1]

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.

On 4 May 2007, Pearson announced that it had agreed to acquire Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International from Reed Elsevier for $950m in cash.^[2] Due to Pearson's market-leading position in the US textbook market they were not interested in the main Harcourt business on account of regulatory concerns.^[3]

Pearson sold its international government services (Pearson Government Solutions) division to Veritas Capital. The new stand-alone company, Vangent, Inc, has its international headquarters in Arlington, VA, with offices in London, Rotherham, Yorkshire, and Canada. The sale was finalized on March 9th, 2007.^[4]

[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. However, Edexcel has also continued to endorse textbooks published by non-Pearson companies.

[edit] Structure and holdings

Pearson PLC is a holding company. Most of Pearson's significant subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States, England and Wales, and are wholly-owned by Pearson.^[5] In 2006, the company had sales revenue of £4.137 billion.^[6] In 2007, Pearson PLC had 29,000 employees, £4,218 million in revenue, £634 million in operating income, and £310 million net income.^{[citation needed]}

Pearson has three operating divisions: Pearson Education, The FT Group, and The Penguin Group.^[7]

[edit] Penguin Group: trade publishing

Main article: Penguin Group

Most Pearson trade publishing is done by the Penguin Group, which includes international imprints such as 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, and Viking.

Infoplease is a website devoted to "providing authoritative answers to all kinds of factual questions since 1938 first as popular radio quiz show, then starting in 1947 as an annual almanac, and since 1998 on the internet."^[8]