Pearson PLC

Pearson plc ; is a London-based mass media Conglomerate (company). It is the largest book publisher in the United Kingdom, India, Australia and New Zealand, and the second largest in the United States 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, London, 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 Pearson, 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 construction, 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 and, in 1971, Penguin Group.

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 BSB, choosing expensive methods and technology, was superseded by Rupert Murdoch s Sky Television, which used proven technology and leased transponders on SES Astra satellites.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, Pearsons sold their 22% stake in RTL Group, the largest commercial television and radio broadcaster in the European Union.

=Holdings=

==Book Publishing==

Penguin Group, Allen Lane, Avery, Berkley Books, Dial (publisher), Dutton (publisher), Dorling Kindersley, Grosset & Dunlap, Hamish Hamilton, Ladybird Books, Plume, Puffin, Penguin Putnam Inc., Michael Joseph, Riverhead, Rough Guides, Viking Press

==Educational Publishing==

, National Computer Systems, Family Education Network, LessonLab

==Periodicals==

*The Financial Times Group *FTSE 100 Index International (50% stake) *The Economist Group (50% stake)

=External links=

*[http://www.pearson.com/ Pearson plc site] *[http://www.ketupa.net/pearson.htm Ketupa.net media profiles: Pearson]