Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) founded the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies in 1982, which he ran for 28 years before retiring in 2010.Â
In the third quarter of 2015, the fund added 155,700 shares of Pearson PLC (PSO, Financial) for a 17.29% increase. The fund now owns 1,056,400 shares of Pearson.
Pearson is the world's largest education company with over 40,000 employees worldwide in more than 70 countries. In 2012 Pearson founded PALF, which is committed to furthering the education of students in underdeveloped countries. In January, Pearson announced plans to invest another $50 million over the course of the next three years as a commitment to bring the best opportunity to educate children in the developing world.
According to their website projectliteracy.com, there are 757 million illiterate people in the world. The company's goal is to improve learning habits through research data analysis to help as many people in developing countries as possible in the future.
Pearson has a market cap of $9.04 billion, an enterprise value of $12.7 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.89, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a dividend yield of 7.20%.
Below is a Peter Lynch chart for Pearson.
There are a few good signs for Pearson:
Pearson's dividend yield is close to the 10-year high.
P/S ratio of 1.25 is close to the five-year low of 1.19.
There is alsotwo severe warning signs for Pearson:
Operating margin has been in a five-year decline. The average rate of decline per year is 11%.
Pearson keeps issuing new debt. Over the past three years, it issued £287 million of debt.
We need more great companies that are working to improve humanity. Simons believes that Pearson PLC is a solid investment and I agree.
Cheers to your investment success.
Disclaimer: Author does not currently own any shares in this stock.
