Pearson plc — BrandWiki

Pearson plc

Overview

Pearson plc

revenue
former name	S. Pearson & Son
type	Public
traded as	lse: PSON nyse: PSO FTSE 100 component
founded	1844
founder	Samuel Pearson
hq location	Shell Mex House, London, England
key people	Omid Kordestani (chairman) Omar Abbosh (CEO)

operating income	GB£507 million (2025)‡R1R‡

net income	GB£336 million (2025)‡R1R‡

assets	GB£6,458 million (2025)‡R1R‡

equity	GB£3,663 million (2025)‡R1R‡

num employees	18,000 (2025)‡R2R‡

industry	Education · Mass media

products	Educational materials (books, tests), Television distribution

services	Educational assessment · school management · higher education

subsid	Pearson Education · Edexcel

website	https://plc.pearson.com/

Pearson plc is a multinational corporation, headquartered in the UK, focused on educational publishing and services.

Originating in 1844 and named S. Pearson and Son by Samuel Pearson in 1856, what began as a small local civil engineering business in Yorkshire grew between 1880 and 1927 into a massive diversified international conglomerate under the subsequent leadership of Samuel's grandson Weetman Pearson.[3] By the time of World War II, the company had major national and international subsidiaries in manufacturing, electricity, oil, coal, banking and financial services, publishing (periodicals and books), and aviation.

After the Second World War and the British government's nationalisation of many industries, Pearson refocused on publishing and media. In 1984 the company changed its name from S. Pearson & Son plc to Pearson plc.[4][5] Under the leadership of CEO Marjorie Scardino, in 1998 Pearson PLC formed Pearson Education, and by 2016, Pearson education was Pearson plc's exclusive focus. As of 2023 Pearson Education, known since 2011 as simply Pearson, is Pearson plc's main subsidiary. Pearson owns one of the GCSE examining boards for the UK, Edexcel.[6]

Pearson plc has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.

History

Civil engineering businesses 1844–1925

In 1844 Samuel Pearson became an associate partner in a small brickmaking and contracting civil engineering company in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.[7] In 1856 Pearson's eldest son George entered the business, which became known as S. Pearson & Son, "sanitary tube and brickmakers and contractors for local public works in and around Bradford". In 1880, control passed to Samuel's grandson Weetman Dickinson Pearson (later 1st Viscount Cowdray), an engineer, who in 1890 moved the business to London and turned it into one of the world's largest construction companies.[8]

Another of its prominent engineers was Ernest William Moir who, after working for Pearson on tunnels in New York City, became the contractor's agent on construction of the Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames in London between 1892 and 1897.[9]

Organisational structure

Pearson plc is a holding company, and conducts its business primarily through subsidiaries and other affiliates.[120] As of December 2022, its main subsidiaries are:[120]

According to the company's website, its business divisions consist of:[121]

Pearson Education Inc. (United States);
Pearson Education Ltd. (United Kingdom);
NCS Pearson, Inc. (United States).

Assessment & Qualifications;
Virtual Learning;
English Language Learning;

Criticism

Concerns exist around the amount of influence Pearson, being a commercial company, has on public education.[122] Other concerns are around tax avoidance, high value contracts, and an instance of laying off teachers to offset the high costs of testing.[123] In 2017, more than six out of ten Pearson shareholders voted against then-chief executive John Fallon's pay package of £1.5 million, after the company made a record loss.[124] Pearson US has been criticised for using offshore tax avoidance schemes involving a host of companies at a service address in Luxembourg.[125]

Pearson owns Edexcel, a British education and examination board.[126] Edexcel has produced qualifications which link to Pearson texts, although Edexcel also continues to endorse textbooks published by other companies.[69]

External links

Official website

References

Annual Results 2025 Pearson plc, retrieved 27 February 2026^
$1.1 Trillion at Stake: Pearson Report Urges Action, Solutions for Skills Gap Pearson plc, 22 January 2025, retrieved 27 January 2026^
S. Pearson & Son Ltd

Entertainment media businesses 1978–2002

For several decades, Pearson had owned Chessington Zoo in Greater London. In 1978, the company were approached by Madame Tussauds in London, who also owned Warwick Castle and Wookey Hole Caves, to purchase the zoo and so were acquired by Pearson to place Chessington under Tussauds' ownership.[39]

In 1981 Pearson's publishing subsidiary Pearson Longman established Goldcrest Films and Television in 1981, led by the founder of Goldcrest Films, John Eberts, and chaired by James Lee, chief executive of Pearson Longman.[40] At its inception, the new concern owned 40% of Goldcrest Films.[40]

Pearson's newly formed subsidiary The Tussauds Group, then consisting of the Madame Tussauds wax exhibitions, Warwick Castle and Wookey Hole, redeveloped Chessington Zoo into Chessington World of Adventures theme park, opened in 1987, and subsequently purchased Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire in 1990. In 1998, Pearson sold the Tussauds Group to venture capital firm Charterhouse Development Capital for £352m, ending their involvement in the visitor attractions business.[41]

In 1986, Pearson invested in the British Satellite Broadcasting consortium, which a few years later merged with Sky Television to form a new company, British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB).[42]

During the 1990s, the company acquired a number of TV production and broadcasting assets, including former ITV franchisee Thames Television,[43][44] Australian production company Grundy Television,[45][46][47] U.S. television company All American Communications Inc.,[48] Italian drama production company Mastrofilm,[49] European animation financer and distributor EVA Entertainment,[50]

In 1994, Pearson acquired software publisher The Software Toolworks for US$462million,[52] and rebranded it Mindscape.[53] In 1998, Pearson sold Mindscape to The Learning Company for US$150million, taking a $346 million loss on the sale.[54]

In 2000, Pearson merged its television holdings with CLT-UFA to form the RTL Group.[55] In 2002 it exited the industry entirely by selling its 22% stake in RTL to Bertelsmann.[56][57]

Pearson Education and corporate refocus 1998–2016

Scardino and new focus on education

Marjorie Scardino, who was CEO of Pearson plc from 1997 to 2013, increasingly focused the conglomerate on education and on making education acquisitions.[58][59] In 1998, Pearson plc purchased the education division of Simon & Schuster, which included Prentice Hall, Allyn & Bacon,[60][61] and parts of Macmillan Inc. including the Macmillan name.[62][63] Later in 1998 it merged Simon & Schuster's educational business with Addison Wesley Longman to form Pearson Education.[64]

Pearson sold and divested most of its Simon & Schuster divisions in 1999.[65]

In March 2000 Pearson acquired the illustrated reference publisher Dorling Kindersley and integrated it within Penguin.[66] It acquired National Computer Systems (NCS) in September 2000, entering the educational assessment and school management systems market in the United States.[67]

In 2002, Pearson purchased Rough Guides, the travel publisher, and brought it under Penguin.[68]

In 2003 it acquired Edexcel,[69] a provider of qualifications in the UK, and in 2004 acquired about 80% stake in Meximerica Media Inc for the swelling U.S. Hispanic market.[70] Pearson purchased a series of other testing and assessment businesses, including Knowledge Technologies in 2004,[71] AGS in 2005,[72] and Promissor in 2006.[73] It acquired National Evaluation Systems, a provider of customised state assessments for teacher certification in the US, in 2006[74] and acquired eCollege, a digital learning technology group, in 2007.[75]

It sold Silver Burdett Ginn Religion, a Catholic publishing division it operated under the Scott Foresman imprint, to RCL Benziger in 2007.[76] In 2007 Pearson Education sold the Macmillan name to Holtzbrinck Publishing Group,[62][63] which had purchased Macmillan Publishing Ltd. in the late 1990s.[77]

In 2008 Pearson acquired Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International from Reed Elsevier[78] and merged them into Pearson Assessment & Information.[79]

In February 2008, Pearson announced the sale of its Pearson Data Management Division (formerly the scanner manufacturing and servicing division of NCS Inc.) to Scantron Corporation (part of M&F Worldwide) which had been its main competitor.[80]

In 2010, Pearson acquired the adult English training service Wall Street Institute[81] and the school learning systems division of Sistema Educacional Brasileiro (SEB).[82] Also in 2010, the company sold its 61% stake in Interactive Data to investment funds managed by Silver Lake Partners and Warburg Pincus.[83]

Pearson Education rebrands as Pearson (2011) and Pearson plc rebrands as education-only (2016)

Pearson Education was rebranded as simply Pearson in 2011.[84]

In July 2011, Pearson announced the creation of Pearson College, a British degree provider based in London.[85][86] Also in 2011, Pearson acquired Connections Education and agreed to sell its 50% stake in FTSE International Limited to the London Stock Exchange for £450 million.[87] In 2011, Pearson also increased its stake in TutorVista to 76%.[88]

In May 2012 Pearson announced its acquisition of GlobalEnglish Corporation, an American Business English software and solutions company, in an all-cash transaction.[89]

Scardino and new focus on education

Pearson sold and divested most of its Simon & Schuster divisions in 1999.[65]

In 2002, Pearson purchased Rough Guides, the travel publisher, and brought it under Penguin.[68]

In 2008 Pearson acquired Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International from Reed Elsevier[78] and merged them into Pearson Assessment & Information.[79]

Pearson Education rebrands as Pearson (2011) and Pearson plc rebrands as education-only (2016)

Pearson Education was rebranded as simply Pearson in 2011.[84]

In May 2012 Pearson announced its acquisition of GlobalEnglish Corporation, an American Business English software and solutions company, in an all-cash transaction.[89]

In October 2012 Pearson entered into talks with rival conglomerate Bertelsmann, over the possibility of combining their respective publishing companies, Penguin Group and Random House,[90] and said it would merge Penguin Books with Bertelsmann's Random House to create the world's biggest consumer book publisher.[91]

In February 2013, following government changes to apprenticeship funding rules, Pearson sold its Pearson in Practice, a UK vocational training business, to West Nottinghamshire College, which renamed it Vision Workforce Skills.[92][93]

In May 2013, Pearson announced a new restructuring plan to invest in digital learning and emerging markets, after predicting weaker earnings.[94] The change supported the decoupling of the Penguin consumer publishing business into a separate entity with Random House (forming Penguin Random House). The new structure combined the separate education companies, Pearson International and Pearson North America under one Pearson company and Pearson reorganised around three global lines of business – School, Higher Education and Professional. The Financial Times Group and Pearson English formed part of Pearson Professional.[95]

In July 2014, the company announced it had cut 4,000 jobs, representing 10% of the company's workforce.[96]

Pearson announced in July 2015 that it had agreed to sell the FT Group, which includes business daily Financial Times, to Japanese media group Nikkei for £844 million, or $1.32 billion. The sale does not include FT Group's London property at One Southwark Bridge.[97] Pearson retained the publishing rights to FT Press and licensed the trademark from Nikkei.[98] In August 2015, Pearson's sold its 50% stake in The Economist to the Agnelli family,[99] who previously held 4.7% of the group.[100] The remaining 50% of The Economist Group is owned by the Schroders, Cadburys and the Rothschilds.[100]

Following the sale of its financial news publications Financial Times and The Economist in 2015, Pearson plc rebranded in January 2016 to focus solely on education, and the corporation adopted a new logo,[101] the interrobang (‽), a combination of a question mark and an exclamation point, meant to convey a "combination of excitement, curiosity and individuality"[101] and "the excitement and fun of learning".[102]

Pearson plc

History

Civil engineering businesses 1844–1925

Organisational structure

Criticism

See also

External links

References

Manufacturing businesses 1856–1993

Electricity businesses 1900–1960

Oil businesses 1901–1989

Banking and financial services 1919–1999

Coal businesses 1921–1947

Publishing businesses 1921–1997

Aviation businesses 1929–1959

Entertainment media businesses 1978–2002

Pearson Education and corporate refocus 1998–2016

Scardino and new focus on education

Pearson Education rebrands as Pearson (2011) and Pearson plc rebrands as education-only (2016)

Scardino and new focus on education

Pearson Education rebrands as Pearson (2011) and Pearson plc rebrands as education-only (2016)

2017–present