British publisher Pearson, the owner of the Financial Timesnewspaper and Penguin books, said today it had made a good start to 2008 and was trading in line with its expectations.
"We expect another year of good earnings growth, even in these more uncertain economic conditions," the world's biggest publisher of education materials said in a statement before its annual shareholder meeting.
Pearson, which makes almost two-thirds of its sales and operating profit from education-related business, said it continued to expect "another year of good profit growth" from its education operations.
It also forecast profit growth at the
Financial Times, which it said was showing sustained growth in subscription, circulation and advertising revenues.
Penguin had made a strong start to the year as well, and was on track to achieve a double-digit percentage profit margin this year, Pearson said.
First-half publishing highlights include Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Sebastian Faulks's forthcoming James Bond novel "Devil May Care", it said.
Pearson shares have underperformed the DJ Stoxx European media index by 10 percent over the past 12 months. They closed at 665.5 pence on Thursday, valuing the business at about 5.4 billion pounds ($10.7 billion).