The Penguin Group

Sales up 1%; Profit up 4%.

Strong operational progress

Sales up 1%; profit up 4%; margins up 0.9%; strong cash generation.
Successful format innovation to help address weakness of mass market category in the US, down a further 4% for the industry in 2005. First seven Penguin Premium paperbacks published, priced at $9.99, and all become bestsellers, with authors including Nora Roberts, Clive Cussler and Catherine Coulter.
Pearson Education moves successfully into new shared UK warehouse in second half of 2005.

Outstanding publishing performance

Penguin authors win a Pulitzer Prize (for Steve Coll's Ghost Wars), a National Book Award (William T. Vollman's Europe Central), the Whitbread Book of the Year (Hilary Spurling's Matisse the Master), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Ali Smith's The Accidental) and the FT & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award (Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat).
129 New York Times bestsellers and 54 top 10 bestsellers in the UK. Major bestselling authors include Patricia Cornwell, John Berendt, Sue Grafton, Jared Diamond, Jamie Oliver, Gillian McKeith, Jeremy Clarkson and Gloria Hunniford.

Successful focus on new talent

Strong contribution from new imprints and first-time authors. New imprint strategy continues to gather pace and Penguin publishes more than 150 new authors in the US and approximately 250 worldwide - its largest ever investment in new talent.
Sue Monk Kidd's first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, has been a New York Times bestseller for almost two years; her second, The Mermaid Chair, reaches number one in 2005. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini's first book, stays on the New York Times bestseller list for all of 2005, selling an additional two million copies (three million in total). In the UK, strong performance from new fiction authors including Jilliane Hoffman, PJ Tracy, Karen Joy Fowler and Marina Lewycka.

Continued investment in new markets and international talent

Launch of regional language publishing programme in India with first ten titles in Hindi and Marathi; approximately 70 new titles to be published in 2006. Acquisition of worldwide English language rights to Wolf Totem, one of China's top five bestselling books for more than a year.

Strong 2006 publishing schedule

Strong list of new titles for 2006 from bestselling authors including Nathaniel Philbrick, Patricia Cornwell, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Jamie Oliver, Sue Townsend and Jeremy Paxman.