To paraphrase Shakespeare’s King Henry V: Once more unto the breach do we take up the gauntlet to seek out the world’s best returns. In this issue we turn to the United Kingdom.

 Much of the country is still a storybook land dotted with medieval castles and Victorian manors, even as the great skyscrapers of London remind us that the U.K. has been one of the world’s major banking and commercial capitals for more than a century. The U.K. has a vibrant 21stcentury economy, and it has produced many great income-producing businesses that have withstood the test of time.

 One of those is Pearson PLC, a publishing firm and parent to the Financial Times of London. We’re adding Pearson, which pays a 4.3% dividend, to our Conservative Portfolio. Pearson is both a good investment and a defensive play.

 The U.S. stock market still seems overvalued despite October’s correction, which is why I’m advising investors to diversify toward Europe to preserve wealth and income should U.S. markets suffer a prolonged decline.

 The U.K. has the best opportunities for investment in Europe, as the economy has seen robust growth. Meanwhile, the Continent wallows like the French army mired in mud at Agincourt in 1415, before Henry V’s men cut them to ribbons. Britain’s gross domestic product expanded by 0.7% in the third quarter from the second quarter, and year-over-year the economy grew 3%.

 Concerns that other parts of Europe might put a drag on this performance eased somewhat as the European Central Bank recently unveiled plans to boost companies’ and households’ access to financing, and has rolled out a stimulus program that will pump as much as $1.26 trillion into Europe.

 In recognition of this, I recently added top banks HSBC Holdings and Banco Santander to our Aggressive Portfolio. Both will benefit from a recovery in Europe and high-growth emerging markets in Asia and Latin America, respectively. We profile both banks in this issue.

 But in this article I want to focus on the U.K. and Pearson.

Having spent more than a decade visiting the U.K. regularly for business and for graduate study, I’ve seen firsthand that the British are exceptional at building long-lasting firms that generate stable income.

Once and Future Businesses

 One thing that’s surprising to many Americans is the longevity of many of the U.K.’s institutions. British bank Barclays has been operating for more than 300 years, insurance market Lloyd’s of London for 325 years, and my MBA alma mater, Oxford University, has been educating leaders for more than 900 years.

 This accomplishment is no small beer. Research by Richard Foster, a Yale School of Management professor and coauthor of Creative Destruction found that the average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company in the U.S. fell from 61 years a half-century ago to just 18 years by 2010 (this from an article in Entrepreneur magazine).

 In the same article, management experts agreed that companies make common mistakes that lead them to failure, “such as holding on to once-profitable business models too long (think Blockbuster), failing to innovate, and not paying attention to their customers’ preferences and needs.”

 The U.K. has its fair share of companies that have been disrupted by new technologies and business practices, and age and wisdom are not the only secrets to success. But they are important factors that have helped these institutions survive and thrive.

 I remember talking with the vice-chancellor of Oxford University about how age-old organizations develop an accumulated knowledge and a resilient business model that help perpetuate them. Large, established institutions that endure are entrepreneurial, just not in the traditional, high-risk sense. The types of risks they take are incremental (they don’t bet the farm), and investments are made with a multi-decade view.

 In the late 1990s, I had an up-close view of one of these century-spanning companies, working for the Financial Times of London, established in 1888. It continues to be the world’s most respected financial newspaper. I was recruited to a division of the FT, known as FT Energy, which was created to deliver analysis  and consulting on energy derivatives markets to bankers and traders.

 This was a perfect example of an established institution entering a market entrepreneurially. The FT bought three U.S. companies (a consultancy, research house and data firm) and then combined it with its own European business service group to be at the forefront of these markets. The deregulation of electricity (which happened in the U.K. first) was creating new business opportunities in the U.S. in the late 1990s.

 By becoming an expert at a technical level, the FT could use that expertise to craft coverage for a broader newspaper audience interested in these brave new markets, as well as create high-end specialty products.

 The energy group I worked with became known as billions of dollars of energy derivatives contracts traded on our indices and market analysis. As a result of my focus on energy policy, I once had the opportunity to attend “Questions to the Prime Minister in Parliament With Tony Blair.” (But I paid a price: Colleagues would routinely stop by my desk and ask, “Aren’t you due in Parliament?”)

 The mark of a multi-century survivor is that it’s always exploring and repositioning, and years after I left, the FT’s parent, Pearson PLC (NYSE: PSO) sold its energy division at a considerable profit and used the money to expand its position in educational publishing. In fact, for the last decade, Pearson has been building market share in education services, digital learning and emerging markets.

 And although the firm has had various challenges in the last few years that are specific to publishing companies, I continue to believe this firm has the essential, time-tested DNA to succeed. Pearson’s chief executive recently said: “We are performing well competitively through a period of change and in difficult markets. We still expect those markets to start to stabilize next year and then return to growth in future years.”

 Pearson’s restructuring program is on track and the company is gaining ground in digital services and emerging-market education, he said, and predicted this will result in a leaner, faster-growing business that will generate more cash in 2015.

 To borrow the FT’s motto, “without fear and without favor,” we are adding Pearson as a buy up to $22 to the Conservative Portfolio.