Libya's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority, owns a little more than 3% of Pearson, which owns the Financial Times, Penguin publishers, and half of the Economist. The Guardian reports that lawyers for Pearson are looking into the matter, and it quotes Pearson's chief executive, Marjorie Scardino:
"It is abhorrent to us what is happening in Libya and we have made it clear we are uncomfortable with the holding," said Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson. "We are in a terrible position, it is abhorrent for everyone at Pearson. We do not know what the freeze notice covers at this point."...
"We did meet with one of their financial representatives, a European – he was a middleman, not really a representative of the authority," Scardino said. "We are a public company in a free market and we don't choose our shareholders they choose us. The basic premise is, this is one of those glitches in the free market system. Unfortunately we can't tell a shareholder to get off our register."
