PEARSON Plc, the owner of publisher Penguin Group Inc, said profit last year met or exceeded the highest analyst estimates on increased demand for testing of business school applicants, students and nurses.
The company will post a record profit for 2007 on "good sales growth and margin improvement," the London-based company said in a statement yesterday, Bloomberg News reported.
The highest analyst prediction for adjusted earnings is 45.5 pence a share, Pearson said. The company posted adjusted earnings of 40.2 pence per share in 2006.
Education, Pearson's largest business, will report its best year ever, the company said. The company is expanding its education unit and has opened exam centers worldwide and acquired Xcitek LLC, a provider of stock market data, to boost its testing and finance businesses.
"Overall the trading statement reads well, with all businesses continuing to perform in line or ahead of expectations," Merrill Lynch & Co analyst Paul Sullivan said in a note to clients yesterday. He has a "buy" rating on the stock.
Pearson rose two pence, or 0.3 percent, to 622.5 pence at 8:33am in London trading. The benchmark FTSE 100 Index lost 1.8 percent.
The business information and consumer publishing unit performed better than anticipated, Pearson said. The FT Group, publisher of the Financial Times newspaper, grew "strongly" in all its subscription businesses, according to the statement. The FT Publishing business sustained its advertising sales growth and posted a "significant margin improvement."
Pearson said its Penguin book unit, the publisher of Alan Greenspan's memoir, achieved "operating improvements" on an "outstanding publishing performance."
The company said it will meet or exceed the highest analyst estimates "even after the significant weakening of the US dollar during the year."
Pearson, which generates about two-thirds of its sales in the US, said the pound averaged US$2 against the dollar last year, up from US$1.84 in 2006.
"This is another excellent performance across all our businesses and on all our financial measures," Chief Executive Officer Marjorie Scardino said in the statement.