Forecasting is difficult, especially about the future, as the old line goes – but is it quite as hard as John Fallon, chief executive of Pearson, makes it seem?

Two errors in 2016 were understandable, or at least not unique. Most big US educational publishers were too optimistic about the numbers of students enrolling in US colleges and the number of students who would opt to rent, rather than buy, their textbooks.

Trickier to explain, however, is Fallon’s relative confidence only three months ago. Last October, when revenues from higher education courseware material were running at minus 13% at the nine-month stage, Pearson spoke of “improving trends”. In the event, revenues plunged 30% in the final quarter of the year.

“We now assume that many of these downward pressures will continue,” warned Wednesday’s statement meekly. Profits for 2016 will still hit the £630m target but 2017 could see a decline. More significantly, the important target of £800m for 2018 has been abandoned, or “withdrawn” in the cute phrasing. Another ambition was to keep paying dividends, at least at the old rate. That, too, has been ditched. Against those upsets and a 29% fall in the share price, the proposed sale of Pearson’s 47% stake in Penguin Random House was almost a side-story for shareholders.

The entire educational market in the US, on which Pearson staked its future a decade ago, has been blasted from many directions. An “unprecedented period of change and volatility” – Fallon’s description – is accurate, but the question is whether Pearson adapted fast enough in the print-to-digital revolution. Back in February 2014, a year into the job, Fallon reckoned Pearson was “in the middle of what we believe will be a short, but difficult, transition”. Three years later, the transition is having to become faster. Pearson will cut ebook rental prices by up to 50% on 2,000 titles and invest an extra £50m at improving its digital capabilities.

Fallon offered a spirited defence that, when the dust settles, the digital future in education will be stable, reliable and “at least as profitable” as the analogue past. The theory runs that educational publishing in the US is not like the newspaper business: prices for digital content, complete with tailored material and self-assessment features, might be lower but old-style printed textbooks will no longer pass through six hands.

Will Fallon still be at Pearson to see his prophecy fulfilled or not? One doubts it. The share price has halved on his watch and chief executives tend not to survive five profits warnings in four years. Sidney Taurel, the chairman, is new-ish and thus hard to read – but Fallon should probably prepare for a short but difficult conversation.

Deutsche Bank surrenders bonuses after nightmare year

It should not be noteworthy that a bank that isn’t paying a dividend to its shareholders, is forking out $7.2bn in fines to US regulators and is cutting thousands of jobs, has also decided that its senior employees can live without their usual bonuses for a year.

Deutsche Bank’s common-sense policy counts as interesting, however. Think back to Barclays in 2014. The bank wasn’t in quite as deep a pickle as today’s Deutsche, but profits had just fallen by a third and Barclays was in the scandalous position of distributing three times as much in bonuses as in shareholders’ dividends. Chief executive Antony Jenkins explained he felt compelled to pay the big bucks to prevent a “death spiral” of defections.

Jenkins’ pusillanimous decision didn’t work to his advantage – he was dismissed the following year. Deutsche’s John Cryan isn’t being wholly pure in cancelling individual bonuses for the top 25% of staff. He will still spray a few long-term incentives on “a limited number of employees in crucial positions”. But his approach is miles away from Barclays’ in 2014, suggesting the death-spiral is more of a gentle slope that a self-respecting bank ought to be able to confront.

How much did Rolls-Royce’s executives know about its criminal dealings?

A senior high court judge called Rolls-Royce’s conduct, for which it will pay £671m in penalties, “egregious criminality over decades”. Sir Brian Leveson also said Rolls-Royce had known about potential corruption in 2010 but decided not to notify the Serious Fraud Office. A report was supplied only after the company, under different leadership, started its own investigations in 2013.

So what – if anything – were the non-executive directors told at the time? Did they know about the 2010 report?

Iain Conn, these days chief executive of Centrica, was Rolls-Royce’s senior independent director in 2010. Asked in Davos (where else?) by the Guardian about what he was told, he said on Wednesday: “I’m not an officer of the company. I can’t speak for the company. You’ll have to ask them.”

Really? Surely it is reasonable for shareholders, who ultimately will pay the heavy bill, and outsiders to expect former members of the board to speak for themselves.