Pearson Financial Director ups his stake

Robin Freestone, Financial Director of FTSE 100 publishing giant Pearson, has added another 8,560 shares to his already sizeable stake.

Freestone bought the shares on May 15th at 1,168p each for a total of £99,981 in a transaction that takes his total number of shares to 367,649.

He made the purchase just one day before the company announced its acquisition of Utah-based IT examining business Certiport from private equity firm Spire Capital Partners, expanding its professional testing business, Pearson VUE.

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Certiport, acquired for $140m in cash, develops, markets and distributes certification exams and practice tests of IT and digital literacy skills. It works through a network of 12,000 testing centres operated by 70 partners worldwide. It is expected to be earnings enhancing (on an adjusted basis) to Pearson from 2013, its first full year.

At the end of April Pearson said it continued to expect growth in sales and operating profits this year, despite markets stubbornly refusing to show many signs of improvement.

The Financial Times and Penguin books publisher said sales increased by 11% at constant exchange rates to £1.16bn in the first three months of the year. The underlying sales increase was 3% while what Pearson calls the headline increase was 12%. The growth was in line with market expectations.

The share price is at roughly the same level it was this time last year, down just 3.00p, or 0.26%.

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