Pearson chief executive Dame Majorie Scardino today insisted the Financial Times had “never been better” as she dismissed fears about greater competition in the event The Wall Street Journal is bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

News Corporation, the parent company of The Times and Times Online, is still waiting to hear whether the controlling stakeholder in Dow Jones, the Bancroft family, will accept its $5 billion bid. Dame Majorie doubted News Corp would turn its attentions to the FT if it failed.

She said today the FT was “fully ready to compete” after reaping the dividends of a avoiding the mass market and instead pursuing a niche strategy of targeting business leaders around the world.

“The FT is doing fantastically well,” she said.

“It’s circulation is up, we raised the cover price all over the world and the circulation went up, it’s just in great shape. We are going to be fully ready to compete.”

She added: “The Wall Street Journal may have two million readers but some are small businesses in say, suburban Illinois and that is not the image we want.”

Pearson last month decided against launching a counterbid to News Corporation’s offer for Dow Jones, owner of The Wall Street Journal, after discussing a joint offer with General Electric.

Dame Majorie said that the FT remained in talks with GE about forming an alliance with the group’s CNBC business channel.

Interim results from Pearson, revealed today, show a strong start to the year with adjusted pre-tax profits across the group of £54 million in the six months to June 30, up 74 per cent. Revenue rose 3 per cent to £1.7 billion.

Pearson makes almost 80 per cent of its money in the second half and Dame Majorie said the strong first six months gave a “strong hint” about the potential for outcome for 2007 as a whole.

The group has benefited from far stronger revenues in its core education business and steady sales at Penguin books.

Revenues at Pearson’s Professional education arm are likely to grow by between 5-to-7 per cent this year, against earlier guidance of a “broadly level” performance, following a jump in bookings at test centres that run entry exams for business schools and hospitals.

Profits at FT Publishing more than doubled to £23 million with circulation of the FT newspaper up 1 per cent to 450,000. Advertising revenue on the newspaper climbed 5 per cent with FT.com reporting a 40 per cent leap.

Pearson added that profit growth at Interactive Data Capital, the financial market data supplier, could be as high as 24 per cent this year, against earlier forecasts of 10 per cent.

Dame Majorie said the group remained slightly cautious because of the weak US dollar. Two-thirds of its turnover is in the US.

However, analysts signalled they would be raising their full-year forecasts. Pearson’s shares rose 15.5p to 785.5p.

Lorna Tilbian at Numis Securities said: “Pesrson has produced excellent interim results, ahead of our estimates in each division.”

Shareholders will pick up an interim dividend of 11.1p per share, up six per cent.

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