Pink for a girl

8 January 2003

The Financial Times isn’t at home in the Pearson group. It bust Marjorie Scardino’s promises to investors, as she should have foreseen. But that’s water under the bridge. Pearson ought to have sold the FT long ago. It is under no pressure to do so now.

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Context News

Amid a wave of speculation about the Financial Times's future following Pearson's December trading update, the group's chief executive Marjorie Scardino has ruled out a sale of the newspaper.

Despite a target of growing earnings per share in high double digits, Pearson's earnings fell 28% between 1997, when Scardino took over, and 2001. During the same period, operating profit at FT Group fell from £107m to £72m. But the FT's profits have been extremely volatile: between 1997 and 2000, they doubled to £211m, before collapsing with the decline in the advertising market.

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