Half Year 2024 Pearson PLC Earnings Call Transcript
Key Points
- Pearson PLC (PSO) reported a 4% increase in adjusted operating profit to GBP250 million.
- The company saw strong free cash flow, up GBP77 million, reflecting robust operating cash performance.
- Pearson PLC (PSO) is confident in returning to growth in the Higher Education segment for the first time since 2014.
- The company is leveraging AI to enhance its product offerings, which is expected to drive future growth.
- Pearson PLC (PSO) has a diversified portfolio across multiple learning and education segments, providing resilience and growth options.
- Virtual Learning sales decreased by 8%, primarily due to the final portion of the OPM ASU contract in H1 last year.
- Higher Education sales were down 2%, although this was in line with expectations.
- The company faces challenges in the US Higher Education market due to external factors like piracy and enrollment swings.
- Pearson PLC (PSO) has a net debt of GBP1.2 billion, which increased by GBP0.3 billion from last year.
- The company is cautious about the potential impact of the FAFSA student aid situation on enrollments, although it currently expects any impact to be immaterial.
(audio in progress)
2024 interim results and strategic update. (Event Instructions)
And with that, I'll hand over to Omar.
Thank you, Jo. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today for our interim results and strategy update. I've been really looking forward to spending this time with you. We have a busy session. I'm going to kick off today by sharing my early impressions on the business, and then I'm going to hand over to Sally to break down our interim results that many of you will have already seen in our RNS this morning.
Next, I'll share with you our strategy update and what it means for our business going forward. Sally will then highlight what this means for all of you financially, and then we'll move to Q&A. For the first part of the conversation, it's just Sally and me, and then for the Q&A, I've asked some of our wonderful team to join
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