Profits up by £17m on £14m sales improvement

Advertising growth continues and Financial Times returns to profit

• FT newspaper sales up 6% to £221m; £14m profit improvement to £2m.
• FT advertising revenues up 9% (and up 18% in the fourth quarter), improving through the year. Sustained growth in luxury goods and worldwide display advertising. FT.com advertising revenues up 27% as FT's biggest advertisers shift to integrated print and online campaigns.
• More than 90% of advertising revenue improvement converted to profit in 2005.
• FT's average worldwide circulation 2% lower for the year at 426,453 but 1% higher in the second half at 430,635. FT.com's paying subscribers up 12% to 84,000 and average monthly audience up 7% to 3.2 million.

Sustained progress at network of business newspapers

• Sales broadly level and profits £3m higher at the FT Group's other business newspapers and magazines.
• Les Echos advertising revenues and circulation level with 2004 (average circulation of 119,000) despite tough trading conditions.
• FT Business improves margins and profits with good growth in international finance titles.
• FT Deutschland reduces losses further despite a weak advertising market in Germany, and increases average circulation by 6% to 102,000.
• The Economist, in which Pearson owns a 50% stake, increases its circulation by 10% to 1,038,519 (for the January - June ABC period).

Record results in 2005: Sales up 7% to £297m; Profits up 13% to £80m; Margins up 2% points to 26.9%.

Strong organic growth and operating improvements

• FT Interactive Data, IDC's largest business (approximately two-thirds of IDC revenues), generates strong growth in North America and returns to growth in Europe.
• Modest growth at Comstock, IDC's real-time datafeed business for global financial institutions, and at CMS BondEdge, its fixed income analytics business.
• Renewal rates for IDC's institutional businesses remain at around 95%.
• eSignal, IDC's active trader services business, increases headline sales by 27% with continued growth of subscriber base and full-year contribution from FutureSource, acquired in September 2004.
• Continued progress in transition to two new consolidated data centres, enabling IDC's four major businesses increasingly to feed off one centralised data and technology infrastructure.

Continued expansion into adjacent markets

• Acquisition of IS.Teledata for $51m (net of cash acquired) in December 2005 adds web-based financial data applications and further expands IDC's presence in continental Europe.
• Agreement to acquire Quote.com and related assets for $30m in February 2006 which will broaden IDC's range of online services for active traders and financial professionals, and create a new revenue stream in online financial advertising.

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