As shareholders in Pearson, the world’s biggest educational publisher, banked plumper interim dividends yesterday, they may have glanced ruefully at a share price that has fallen steadily since the half-year results on July 30. They hit a 2021 peak of 869p that day but have since slid to 712p.
That is partly explained by the fact that from August 12 the shares no longer carried the right to that dividend. But as the payment is only 6.3p a share, it hardly accounts for a 157p fall.
The interims were respectable, with sales up an underlying 17 per cent on the half year to June 2020. Operating profits slumped from £107 million to £9 million but that was largely because of restructuring costs and the previous
