Pearson PLC said Friday it will sell its Mindscape Inc. educational software unit to Learning Co. for $150 million in cash and stock, taking a loss of $350 million, as the British company strips down to its media businesses.
Pearson’s decision to sell the U.S. company, which it bought for $503 million in 1994, was seen as evidence of chief executive Marjorie Scardino’s determination to focus Pearson on publishing and television.
“They sold the business for a pretty good price,” said Tim Rothwell, a Greig Middleton & Co. analyst. “It would have been a long slog to make it into anything meaningful” for Pearson.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Learning Co. will pay Pearson $97.5 million in cash and $52.5 million in new shares.
Pearson, which owns the Financial Times newspaper and half of the Economist magazine, is selling peripheral businesses and expanding its television-production unit to pursue Scardino’s goal of doubling the company’s value by 2002.
