Pearson, home to the Financial Times newspaper and Penguin books, signalled yesterday it was on course to beat expectations this year after a “burst in growth” in its core American education business.

Dame Marjorie Scardino, its chief executive, hailed “a great set of results”, which showed adjusted pre-tax profits of £54 million in the first half of the year, a 74 per cent increase, Pearson typically makes 80 per cent of its profit in the second half and the interim performance beat the most optimistic expectations in the City.

Shares rose 8p to 778p, recovering some of the 16 per cent fall suffered over the past two months. Dame Majorie said that all three of Pearson’s businesses had delivered strong results. Pearson raised revenue forecasts for its professional education business to between 5-7 per cent for the full year, against previous guidance of a broadly level 12 months.

The company said that it had enjoyed a “burst in growth” at its professional testing unit, which runs entrance examinations for business schools and medical tests for nurses.

The education business as a whole made a first-half profit of £5 million, against a £9 million loss last year.

Pearson also expects far higher profit growth, of up to 24 per cent, from its Interactive Data Capital financial markets business this year. Revenue across the group rose 3 per cent to £1.7 billion.

The results were adjusted after a net loss of £104 million due to a one-off £123 million charge relating to the sale of Pearson’s government services business, Government Solutions.

Dame Majorie said that she remained cautious about the coming months, given the weak US dollar. For every five cent drop, Pearson loses 1p per share of earnings on an annualised basis.

However, she said: “Our half-year results are always just a hint of our potential for the year, but certainly a strong hint this year. Our investments in content, technology, international expansion and efficiency have put us in a position to lead, and we’re leading.”

She added that the Financial Times had “never been better” as she dismissed fears about greater competition if Dow Jones, owner of The Wall Street Journal, is bought by News Corporation. News Corp, the parent company of The Times, is still waiting to hear whether the Bancroft family, which is the controlling stakeholder in Dow Jones, will accept its $5 billion (£2.4 billion) bid.

Dame Majorie said that the FT was perfectly placed to compete after avoiding the mass market and pursuing a niche strategy of targeting business leaders around the world. Circulation at the FT rose 1 per cent in the half-year to 450,000. Subscriptions rose 12 per cent and advertising revenue was 5 per cent higher.

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

“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.”

Last month Pearson decided against launching a counterbid to News Corporation’s offer for Dow Jones, after discussing a joint move with General Electric.

Dame Majorie insisted that the talks had been nothing more than “kicking around a few numbers” and that she was not worried about missing out on the Journal.

She added that the FT remained in talks with General Electric about forming an alliance between its newspaper and GE’s CNBC television business channel.

She doubted that News Corporation would turn its attentions to Pearson if it failed to land Dow Jones. “We are not what Rupert Murdoch is after, he is after the large US market” she said. “But I cannot pretend to understand the corporate mind of News Corp.”

Add and subtract

— Pearson had a £104 million net loss in the first half due to a one-off £123 million charge relating to the sale of its government services business, Government Solutions. This compares with a £7 million profit in 2006

— FT Publishing, which includes the Financial Times, reported that its adjusted first-half profits had more than doubled, to £23 million

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive