Morgan Stanley TMT Conference – Pearson Doing Fine During Crisis, Same Cannot Be Said For Breakfast

While print media lurches around in prolonged death throes, there is one bright point – the Financial Times, whose owners Pearson have been trumpeting their stability amid all this mess at a Morgan Stanley media and technology conference in Barcelona.

With the weakening pound causing all sorts of bother elsewhere, it’s not hurting Pearson thanks to the strengthening dollar bringing greater returns on its US education business. And despite saying that the business will inevitably take a dip in the next year or so, chief financial officer Robin Freestone said that they were well positioned to weather the storm, having lessened the amount they’re relying on advertising. He also said this week’s 30p price rise of the FT to £1.80 still made it “very good value”, and that it might be increased further. I suppose the moral of the story is that if you’re a media company in a recession, you better be selling something people need, rather than merely want – since the beginning of the shit-hitting-fan period of the financial crisis in September, the FT’s circulation has risen over 5%. 

So far, it seems to be the “Shareholder Reassurance Conference”, as advertising giant WPP said they’d be surprised if ad budgets shrank (good luck with that one!), TomTom said everyone still loves sat-navs, and Vodafone said they would hang onto their Verizon stake, and were looking to expand into Nigeria (which is officially the safest place in the world to invest right now). Today there’s chat from ITV, Virgin Media, and dinner at the National Maritime Museum! Jealous!

But hang on. A Morgan Stanley conference in Barcelona? The same Morgan Stanley that had to be bailed out, become an ordinary bank, and cut jobs thanks to the crisis? Are they doing an AIG and hanging out by the pool while the world burns?

Actually no. In fact rather than grating truffles over their eggs in the morning, no one even had eggs. Or bacon. Just pastries and fruit apparently. “Clearly some concessions must be made”, said a Morgan Stanley rep at the start of the conference. Oh, the humanity!

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Hot Money | November 20, 2008 11:00AM |