Financial Times owner Pearson today backed Barack Obama for the White House as it pinned its hopes on more education funding in the US.

The publishing group expects the Republicans under John McCain to support education, but expects more investment from the Democrats.

There have been concerns that the education budget may be cut after the Presidential election - a blow to a company which relies heavily on US schools and students for its business.

"We think it will be better for the Democrats to win," said Dame Marjorie Scardino, the American-born chief executive of Pearson

She said funding of the key No Child Left Behind act, a bipartisan education bill approved in 2001, had so far been "inadequate". She expected Obama to plough in more money.

Pearson's education arm - which sells textbooks and digital-learning programmes to students in America and beyond - accounts for nearly two thirds of the group's profits and is heavily weighted to the second half of the year. But it today reported its first ever first-half profit, of £14 million, after a 17% rise in sales.

Pearson also delivered a 21% rise in profits at the FT Group to £84 million, thanks to price increases and growing circulation at the Pink 'Un. "People are feeling that they need to read the FT in times like these," said Scardino. She said that advertising revenues were up 2% at the newspaper as big City firms continued to invest in marketing.

The firm also owns Penguin, where profits jumped 22% to £26 million with help from the hugely popular James Bond novel Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks. It was Penguin's fastest-selling hard-back of all time.

Pearson's overall profits rose 57% to £55 million after a 14% increase in sales to £1.97 billion.