A Daily Mail report today, "Pearson eyes £570m Economist stake sale", suggests that the company is thinking of selling off its 50% holding in the weekly magazine (that calls itself a newspaper).
It reminded me of a story in the Daily Telegraph in January last year: "Economist investors eye Pearson stake". It stated that minority shareholders in the magazine were "weighing up a plan" to buy Pearson's stake in order "to preserve the publication's independence, and to ward off the prospect of a sale to a conglomerate that may not be as benign as Pearson."
Nothing came of that and it's hard to imagine that anything will come of this latest suggestion either.
The Mail report refers to Pearson as "the struggling education and printing giant". It points out that Pearson reported in July that its investment in The Economist had fallen slightly, "primarily reflecting increased investment in digital development and marketing, and declining print advertising revenue."
But it fails to mention the more positive aspects: circulation "was robust at 1.6m, with digital subscriptions growing 20%" and the Economist Intelligence Unit "benefited from the strong performance of its healthcare division."
Pearson also owns the Financial Times, which has been subject over the years to many reports about the company being prepared to sell it off. Nothing, of course, came of those.
