Pearson slims down with sale of Wall Street English division

Pearson, the education group and one-time FT owner, is selling its language teaching unit Wall Street English to private equity firms Baring and Citic Capital in a $300 million (£225m) deal.

Yesterday’s move comes after Pearson announced in February that it was exploring stra- tegic options to shift away from large-scale direct delivery services as it looks to bulk up its balance sheet.

Wall Street English operates 70 teaching centres in China, nine in Italy and has 321 franchised centres across 27 territories.

Pearson said the deal will see a $100m improvement in its net debt position as some $150m of operating cash will be retained in the disposed business.

Pearson chief executive John Fallon said: “The sale of Wall Street English is part of our continued effort to focus on a smaller number of bigger opportunities in global education and to become simpler and more efficient.”

The disposal follows a number of profit alerts and a record £2.6 billion full-year loss in February for the group. It also comes after Pearson offloaded a 22 per cent stake in its publishing unit Penguin Random House to Germany’s Bertelsmann for about $1bn last month.

Pearson noted that Wall Street English had contributed some £175m to its overall revenues last year and recorded an adjusted operating profit of £7m. 0 John Fallon – focus on small number of big opportunities