LONDON (ShareCast) - David Arculus, a non-executive director at Pearson, spent more than £50,000 on shares in the publishing group, after they fell sharply following the company's results on Monday.

Arculus, who has also worked with media companies Emap and United Business Media, bought 8,000 shares in the Financial Times publisher for 645p each, taking his total holding to 10,223 shares.

Although Pearson posted record full year figures helped by strong growth in all its businesses, investors were unimpressed with future growth prospects.

For the year to December, pre-tax profit rose to £468m, from £448m before, on sales that increased 6% to £4.2bn, even though currency adjustments reduced sales by £228m.

However, Pearson said margins from sales of school textbooks in 2008 are expected to be similar to 2007 due to integration costs.

In 2009 it expects school margins to rise to around 15% as the majority of the integration costs fall away.

Top Director Buys

Lancashire Holdings (LRE)
Director name: Mr Robert Alan Spass
Amount purchased: 100,000 @ 297.10p
Value: £297,100

Pearson (PSON)
Director name: Mr T David G Arculus
Amount purchased: 8,000 @ 645.00p
Value: £51,600

John Wood Group (WG.)
Director name: Mr Jim Renfroe
Amount purchased: 10,000 @ 402.40p
Value: £40,240

IMI (IMI)
Director name: Mr Kevin S Beeston
Amount purchased: 7,500 @ 413.00p
Value: £30,975

Old Mutual (OML)
Director name: Mr Christopher D Collins
Amount purchased: 25,000 @ 117.00p
Value: £29,250

William Hill (WMH)
Director name: Mr David Edmonds
Amount purchased: 7,000 @ 376.00p
Value: £26,320

Media Corporation (MDC)
Director name: Mr Justin Drummond
Amount purchased: 500,000 @ 3.70p
Value: £18,500

Thus Group (THUS)
Director name: Ms Alison Wood
Amount purchased: 8,000 @ 128.50p
Value: £10,280


Top Director Sells

Anglo American (AAL)
Director name: Ms Cynthia Blum Carroll
Amount sold: 29,710 @ 3,329.00p
Value: £989,046

Henderson Group (HGI)
Director name: Mr Roger Yates
Amount sold: 1,004,090 @ 97.40p
Value: £977,984

Henderson Group (HGI)
Director name: Mr Nicholas Toby Hiscock
Amount sold: 351,370 @ 97.40p
Value: £342,234

SABMiller (SAB)
Director name: Mr M I Wyman
Amount sold: 30,000 @ 1,061.00p
Value: £318,300

Ciref (CRF)
Director name: Sir Sir Robert Smith
Amount sold: 39,561 @ 143.00p
Value: £56,572

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