When Samuel Pearson founded a small building company in the north of England back in 1844 he would have had no idea that his eponymous business would become the largest education provider in the world.
But Pearson was to see a number of incarnations, including construction company (it built the Grand Canal in Mexico City, and the East River tunnels connecting New York City to Long Island), newspaper publisher, banking business, and oil baron.
Now the conglomerate has decided to focus on education, after selling its non-core assets. Most recently, it sold the Financial Times to Nikkei for £844 million ($1.1 billion) in 2015 and its stake in the Economist to Exor for £469 million in the same year.