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Pearson CFO Sees U.S. Schools Very Tough in 2010

LONDON (Reuters) - British media group Pearson will continue to invest 8 percent of sales from its education business in new products through next year, which it expects to be a very tough year for U.S. school textbooks.

Chief Financial Officer Robin Freestone told the Reuters Global Media Summit that Pearson would resist the temptation to hike its margins by cutting investment, a strategy he believed would help it raise market share and margins in the long term.

"Yeah, sure, we can put 8 percentage points on the margin tomorrow by stopping investing in the programs," he told the London leg of the summit on Monday.

"The thing that's given us the market leadership that we have is that sustained investment in the products."

The full text of the story is on Reuters.com at: http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalMedia09/idUSTRE5AT4ES20091130