UK education publisher Pearson said today it expects higher savings from cost cuts as it goes through a major restructuring to focus on and ramp up digital content.
The FTSE 100 company has cut thousands of jobs and sold assets, including the Financial Times, in recent years.
It has been expanding into new areas such as providing online academic programmes and supporting virtual schools that are used by home-schooled pupils or those who want to learn subjects not taught at schools.
The company now expects annual cost savings to be higher than £330m by the end of 2019. It had previously forecast cutting about £300m in costs every year between 2017 and 2020.
However, the company expects one-off restructuring costs to rise to around £330m, ahead of its original plan of £300m.
"We have made good progress in 2018, returning Pearson to underlying profit growth. There is much still to do," the company's chief executive John Fallon said.
The company had previously forecast that it would return to profit growth on an underlying basis in 2018.
Pearson said it expects to post adjusted operating profit of £540-545m for 2018, well above analysts' average consensus of £536m, according to compiled consensus.
It also forecast higher adjusted operating profit of £590-640m for 2019, also above a consensus of £601m.
