Pearson profits rocket as firm embraces AI

Jess Jones

EDUCATION publisher Pearson yesterday posted a strong set of results for the first half of the year as the firm moves to embrace artificial intelligence.

The London-based publisher yesterday reported a 56 per cent increase in headline growth, with an adjusted operating profit of £250m.

The listed firm also reported underlying growth of 44 per cent compared to the first half of 2022, while its operating cash flow mushroomed to £79m, up from £9m in the same period last year.

Chief executive Andy Bird said the firm was “confident” it would achieve its full year expectations.

May, said it is “very simplistic to attribute the valuation gap to the place where we are listed” and emphasised BAT’s “well-established base of investors in the UK”, as reported in The Times. It comes after Rajiv Jain, the founder of investment firm GQG Partners, urged BAT to move its main listing from London, calling the firm an “orphan of Europe” in the Financial Times in March.

Shares in the firm, which saw a huge surge last year, closed flat yesterday.

It comes after the firm’s share price was driven down earlier this year after rival publisher Chegg warned AI platform ChatGPT had driven down revenues.

Pearson, however, has shown it is key to embrace the tech, with the firm in May adding a generative AI tool to its online platform Pearson+.

AS WEENTER what looks like the final leg of central banks’ interest rate rising journeys, it’s as good a time as ever to trace why they have been jolted into action after over a decade of ultra-loose policy and whether their response to the inflation crisis has been effective.

Coming out of the worst of the pandemic in the summer of 2021, central banks should have seen that the conditions for inflation to return were lurking in the corners of the global economy.

International supply chains were stretched by a combination of ports suddenly closing at short notice due to virus outbreaks, workers being forced to stay at home and unusually high goods spending overwhelming suppliers.

Once lockdowns ended and citizens gradually returned to normal spending habits, demand for essential items like energy came roaring back, colliding with strained supply.

Judging these trends to be “transitory”, as the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of England did at the time, can be seen as justifiable. Staff would return from Covid. There was little reason to think spending wouldn’t rebalance. Oil, gas and electricity production would rise in response to higher prices.

The bigger concern for central banks was that they didn’t know what shape their respective economies would be in after two years of being ravaged by the pandemic, delaying the start to their tightening cycles.

That’s not to say interest rate rises weren’t required. Signalling an inflation intolerance to financial markets, households and businesses helps retain credibility. Quantitative easing probably lasted too long and was too generous.

As such, the rate rises (finally) came. The BoE went first in December 2021, lifting