Pearson, the publisher of the Financial Times, is accelerating efforts to expand its business in China … [and] is near to finalising a deal to buy LEC, a group of 15 Shanghai private schools, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

"[W]hile print circulation and advertising revenue fall as the growth of the high-speed Internet lures readers and advertisers online, as with every threat, there also comes opportunity."

Ridding: "The competition is not binary any more," he says. "There has been an explosion of new channels, resulting in a much broader competitive set. In all this, the WSJ has circled its wagons around the US while we are focused globally."