Everything about Pearson Plc totally explained
Pearson plc (; ) 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.
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). 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.
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 BSB, choosing expensive methods and technology, was superseded by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. 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.
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.
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.
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. In 2006, the company had sales revenue of £4.137 billion.
In 2007, Pearson PLC had 29,000 employees, £4,218 million in revenue, £634 million in operating income, and £310 million net income.
Pearson has three operating divisions:
Pearson Education,
The FT Group, and
The Penguin Group.
Penguin Group: trade publishing
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."
Pearson Education: educational publishing and training
Some of Pearson's educational publishing imprints include
Pearson Longman,
Addison-Wesley,
Prentice Hall,
Pearson Scott Foresman.
New York Institute of Finance provides financial training.
Financial Times Group: financial publishing
Further Information
Get more info on 'Pearson Plc'.
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