Tom Glocer
Reuters pension funds resume discretionary increases
Friday 16 March 2012
Pension increases will be paid in line with increases in the UK Retail Prices Index up to a maximum of 2.5 per cent for each of the next 10 years. The increases will be backdated to 1 January 2012, though they are unlikely to reach pensioners before May or June due to payroll deadlines.
Friday’s announcement by trustees of Reuters Pension Fund (RPF) and Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme (SPS) followed completion of negotiations with Thomson Reuters on the funds’ December 2010 actuarial valuations. The negotiations also included a fresh look at the parent company guarantees for the two defined benefit schemes, which are closed to new members.
Greg Meekings, pictured, chairman of both funds, said: “I am pleased to say that we have maintained our prudent valuation assumptions and we have agreed a plan with the company to make good the deficit at 31 December 2010 over the next eight years. We have also agreed a substantial increase in the level of Parent Company Guarantee…” The guarantee provides additional support from Thomson Reuters in certain circumstances where the principal employer, Reuters Ltd, is no longer able to support the funds.
The additional discretionary increases are consistent with those provided in pensions being earned by current Thomson Reuters employees who are members of the funds. The increases are being funded by the company, which is also funding the deficit incurred since the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Meekings described the arrangement regarding pensioner discretionary increases as satisfactory and “a generous settlement”. He thanked Tom Glocer, who stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2011, and the Thomson Reuters management team.
“Tom stood by his commitment that the company would find a solution to the provision of discretionary pension increases from the Fund. I’m sure we would like to wish him all the best for his future now that he has retired,” he told fund members.
Pensioners have been vocal in campaigning for restoration of discretionary increases, whose absence over much of the past decade has eroded the value of their pensions.
The Pension Review Group formed in 2004 by RPF and SPS members concerned about the performance of the two funds says that since 2002 the purchasing power of their pensions has fallen by 23.3 per cent. For 2008-2011, Reuters pensioners would have needed an increase of up to 14.4 per cent to cover inflation.
The PRG welcomed the new agreement, which it said provides a degree of certainty of an increase for the next 10 years.
“Obviously, we would have hoped for larger increases each year when the September inflation figures are higher than 2.5 per cent, and also compensation for the loss of value to our pensions over the years when there has been no increase,” PRG chairman Angela Dean said. “However, we have to be realistic and recognise the tough economic climate in which our pension fund has to be managed.”
Meekings, in a talk to The Reuter Society on 6 March, endorsed the contribution made by the PRG over the last eight years, saying “the PRG has served us all very well” and adding that it was “a very valuable group”.
Dean said: “We should also acknowledge the achievement of the chairman of the Trustees, Greg Meekings, and his colleagues on the managing committees in reaching this settlement, as well the support from Thomson Reuters, and in particular from Tom Glocer, to enable a fair deal to be concluded.
“The PRG will not be disbanding, however, and will be monitoring pensions issues both within Thomson Reuters and trends externally.”
RPF, founded in 1893, is one of the oldest pension schemes and by far the larger of the two Reuters plans with net assets of £1,163,753,000 on 31 December 2010. On that date it had 7,774 members comprising 703 active members making contributions and accumulating benefits; 5,450 deferred members no longer making contributions but with benefits left in the fund for payment at a later date; and 1,576 pensioner members, including dependants of members who have died, receiving a pension.
SPS net assets were £178,252,000. The scheme had 191 members, of whom 12 were active members, 62 deferred members, and 117 pensioner members.
● SOURCE Reuters Pension Fund | Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme | Pension Review Group
$3 billion hit pushes Thomson Reuters into heavy loss
Thursday 09 February 2012
Thomson Reuters revealed a $3 billion charge on Thursday related to the declining value of its troubled financial services business, swinging the company to a steep quarterly operating loss.
The loss for last three months of 2011 was $2.59 billion, a sharp contrast to $307 million profit a year earlier.
The charge reflects turmoil in the group’s markets division, whose flagship desktop product Eikon has not been taken up by as many customers as forecast. That lead the division to report quarterly revenues just one per cent higher at $912 million. The company said there were now 15,000 active Eikon installations compared with 8,000 in September.
Thomson Reuters has suffered in the wake of the financial crisis, with customers in banking and finance laying off tens of thousands of employees and slashing costs.
It was the first quarterly report under James Smith, who took over as chief executive from Tom Glocer on 1 January following a series of management shake-ups.
“We have simplified our organisation; we have strengthened our management team; and we are making progress toward improving our execution capability,” the new CEO said in a statement.
The $3 billion charge was the result of the company’s annual goodwill testing. “This non-cash charge will not impact the company’s normal business operations, nor will it affect liquidity, cash flow from operations or financial covenants under the company’s outstanding public debt securities or syndicated credit facility,” it said.
Overall revenues for the quarter were up five per cent before currency changes to $3.35 billion, thanks to strong sales in the group’s legal and tax and accounting businesses.
Thomson Reuters said it expects 2012 revenue to grow in the low single digits.
“The guidance is prudent, as it should be,” Claudio Aspesi, senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein, told Reuters. “My concern is that headwinds in financial services will be very hard because employment will continue to be under pressure. Financial markets and legal both will be under continued revenue pressure in 2012 and beyond. At some point the question of whether the cost structure is in line will have to be answered,” he added.
Thomson Reuters said it intended to sell three businesses: Tax & Accounting's Property Tax Services; Legal's Law School Publishing business; and Financial & Risk's eXimius business, which is part of the Retail Wealth Management organisation. The three businesses combined had about $155 million of revenue in 2011.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times
The loss for last three months of 2011 was $2.59 billion, a sharp contrast to $307 million profit a year earlier.
The charge reflects turmoil in the group’s markets division, whose flagship desktop product Eikon has not been taken up by as many customers as forecast. That lead the division to report quarterly revenues just one per cent higher at $912 million. The company said there were now 15,000 active Eikon installations compared with 8,000 in September.
Thomson Reuters has suffered in the wake of the financial crisis, with customers in banking and finance laying off tens of thousands of employees and slashing costs.
It was the first quarterly report under James Smith, who took over as chief executive from Tom Glocer on 1 January following a series of management shake-ups.
“We have simplified our organisation; we have strengthened our management team; and we are making progress toward improving our execution capability,” the new CEO said in a statement.
The $3 billion charge was the result of the company’s annual goodwill testing. “This non-cash charge will not impact the company’s normal business operations, nor will it affect liquidity, cash flow from operations or financial covenants under the company’s outstanding public debt securities or syndicated credit facility,” it said.
Overall revenues for the quarter were up five per cent before currency changes to $3.35 billion, thanks to strong sales in the group’s legal and tax and accounting businesses.
Thomson Reuters said it expects 2012 revenue to grow in the low single digits.
“The guidance is prudent, as it should be,” Claudio Aspesi, senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein, told Reuters. “My concern is that headwinds in financial services will be very hard because employment will continue to be under pressure. Financial markets and legal both will be under continued revenue pressure in 2012 and beyond. At some point the question of whether the cost structure is in line will have to be answered,” he added.
Thomson Reuters said it intended to sell three businesses: Tax & Accounting's Property Tax Services; Legal's Law School Publishing business; and Financial & Risk's eXimius business, which is part of the Retail Wealth Management organisation. The three businesses combined had about $155 million of revenue in 2011.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times
Another challenging year for Thomson Reuters - CEO James Smith
Thursday 19 January 2012
“During my break, I could not help but reflect on the opportunity and the responsibility of leading Thomson Reuters as CEO,” Smith told the group’s 55,000 employees. “In thinking about the best way to begin, it was helpful to dream about where I wanted to end. What do I want Thomson Reuters to be known for when my tenure as CEO has ended?
“I want us to be known for:
“● Our intimate understanding of customers, their needs and how we can help them achieve their business goals;
“● The quality of our products;
“● The excellence of our customer service;
“● The caliber, character and engagement of our people;
“● And a level of teamwork that makes possible a truly ‘boundaryless’ organization, where the whole delivers far more than just the sum of its parts.
“If we can accomplish all that, the financial results will take care of themselves.”
To do that, however, would need change in the way some things are done and focus on new measurements of success.
“In the coming weeks, expect to hear more about how we will set targets and keep track of our progress in critical areas like competitive position and customer satisfaction. We will elevate the dialog surrounding new product development and sales effectiveness. We will bring renewed commitment to the development of our people and to improving the diversity of our workforce. And we will address aspects of our performance culture to make sure we all celebrate and share in each other’s successes.”
Smith, who took over from Tom Glocer at the turn of the year, added that there would be plenty of tactical priorities and key initiatives to focus on in the coming year. All of them would reflect the long-range goals he had set out.
“I have no doubt that 2012 will be another challenging year. Market conditions remain uncertain in many places and quite difficult in others. The lagging nature of our subscription-based business model means that it takes time to turn the ship, especially in choppy seas.
“But regardless of the short-term challenges, I am confident that we have begun laying the foundation for a successful future. As I reflected over my holiday break on all the changes we announced at the end of 2011, I could not think of one decision I would have changed. The senior team is in place. It has never been stronger, nor more committed to mutual success…
“I have never been more confident of our ability to succeed in the long term. Our best days are ahead of us.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
CEO James Smith appointed a Thomson Reuters director
Thursday 19 January 2012
James Smith, Thomson Reuters’ new chief executive, has been appointed to the board of directors, the company announced on Thursday.
Smith, 52, succeeded Tom Glocer, also 52, as CEO on 1 January after three months as chief operating officer. Previously, he had been chief executive officer of the group’s professional division where he oversaw the legal, tax & accounting and intellectual property & science businesses. Smith joined the Thomson Newspaper group in 1987.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Smith, 52, succeeded Tom Glocer, also 52, as CEO on 1 January after three months as chief operating officer. Previously, he had been chief executive officer of the group’s professional division where he oversaw the legal, tax & accounting and intellectual property & science businesses. Smith joined the Thomson Newspaper group in 1987.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters remains committed to Eikon - product chief
Thursday 29 December 2011
Thomson Reuters is committed to Eikon, the market data desktop launched with much fanfare in 2010 but poorly received by its target customers, and will be rolling out new capabilities in 2012, the company executive in charge of the product said in an interview on Thursday.
“It is still clear to me that the product is the future of the company and that commitment has never waned,” said Philip Brittan, who joined the firm in May and now runs its Eikon group as global head of desktop/mobile platform. “I think it’s exactly the right strategy to bring all of our customers onto one single platform and allow our customers to leverage that set of assets in a much more powerful and flexible way.”
Market observers say a confluence of factors contributed to Eikon’s sluggish start, the website Wall Street & Technology said.
It said that with the news that chief executive Tom Glocer is stepping down, the industry is questioning what went wrong with Eikon. Thomson Reuters had high expectations for it, reportedly investing close to $1 billion in the product, holding launch celebrations in 78 offices worldwide and live events in 14 cities that brought in Wall Street decision makers for demonstrations and executive speeches. An advertising campaign – the company’s largest in its history – touted the product as a market data platform for “The New Eikons of Finance”.
All seemed to be going well. Members of the executive team even rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell on October 4, 2010, and Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division, gave interviews.
“Nine months later Wenig unexpectedly quit along with five key members of staff, after reportedly being asked to make faster and more extensive structural changes than planned. A few months later Glocer expressed regret for the fast pace of Eikon’s launch, and one month after that in early December, the company announced Glocer’s replacement.”
Industry experts say that it was a confluence of factors. “In an economy where cost cutting is rampant on Wall Street, it’s hard for any company to make a major platform switch,” says one industry executive, who requested anonymity. In addition to the cost of the new platform, there are integration and training costs associated with a major platform change. These costs are not easy to swallow in a difficult economic environment.
The executive added: “Eikon was not nearly as successful as Thomson Reuters would have liked, which is to a certain extent why Devin is gone and I’m sure had something to do with Glocer leaving.”
But Brittan says Eikon is exactly where it should be according to the company’s metrics. He admits, as with any new product, there was some “teething” that had to be worked through early on. “There is a process to maturing technology and getting the early kinks worked out,” Brittan says. “There was no one smoking gun that everyone experienced, just some little things like ‘this isn’t showing up right’ or ‘when I do this giant flex sheet it uses a lot of memory,’ or ‘the layout on screen isn’t how I want it’.” These things were fixed very quickly, he said.
Brittan says speed was another issue that came up early during the release. “Speed is something that we are constantly optimising,” he says. “Speed of retrieval of news stories was sluggish according to some, and now it is multiples faster. Creating charts and downloading data into excel, all these things are dramatically faster.
“The product we have out today is dramatically different from the Version 1 roll out of a year ago,” he explains. “The initial product had some gaps, which we’ve been filling.”
Brittan adds: “Our goal is still to transition existing customers to Eikon and to best serve our customers. We’ve got new customers and we’ve got a bunch of customers who have successfully migrated over. We’re not forcing customers to change. We realise it’s an organic thing. We will naturally see the migration in time if the product is the best product. It is relatively new just one year out, so we will move customers at the pace that they want to move.”
What’s next? “We'll be rolling out new capabilities on close to a monthly basis. And in six months we’ll have a bunch of new capabilities. I don't want to talk about them. I just plan to deliver them.”
● SOURCE Wall Street & Technology
“It is still clear to me that the product is the future of the company and that commitment has never waned,” said Philip Brittan, who joined the firm in May and now runs its Eikon group as global head of desktop/mobile platform. “I think it’s exactly the right strategy to bring all of our customers onto one single platform and allow our customers to leverage that set of assets in a much more powerful and flexible way.”
Market observers say a confluence of factors contributed to Eikon’s sluggish start, the website Wall Street & Technology said.
It said that with the news that chief executive Tom Glocer is stepping down, the industry is questioning what went wrong with Eikon. Thomson Reuters had high expectations for it, reportedly investing close to $1 billion in the product, holding launch celebrations in 78 offices worldwide and live events in 14 cities that brought in Wall Street decision makers for demonstrations and executive speeches. An advertising campaign – the company’s largest in its history – touted the product as a market data platform for “The New Eikons of Finance”.
All seemed to be going well. Members of the executive team even rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell on October 4, 2010, and Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division, gave interviews.
“Nine months later Wenig unexpectedly quit along with five key members of staff, after reportedly being asked to make faster and more extensive structural changes than planned. A few months later Glocer expressed regret for the fast pace of Eikon’s launch, and one month after that in early December, the company announced Glocer’s replacement.”
Industry experts say that it was a confluence of factors. “In an economy where cost cutting is rampant on Wall Street, it’s hard for any company to make a major platform switch,” says one industry executive, who requested anonymity. In addition to the cost of the new platform, there are integration and training costs associated with a major platform change. These costs are not easy to swallow in a difficult economic environment.
The executive added: “Eikon was not nearly as successful as Thomson Reuters would have liked, which is to a certain extent why Devin is gone and I’m sure had something to do with Glocer leaving.”
But Brittan says Eikon is exactly where it should be according to the company’s metrics. He admits, as with any new product, there was some “teething” that had to be worked through early on. “There is a process to maturing technology and getting the early kinks worked out,” Brittan says. “There was no one smoking gun that everyone experienced, just some little things like ‘this isn’t showing up right’ or ‘when I do this giant flex sheet it uses a lot of memory,’ or ‘the layout on screen isn’t how I want it’.” These things were fixed very quickly, he said.
Brittan says speed was another issue that came up early during the release. “Speed is something that we are constantly optimising,” he says. “Speed of retrieval of news stories was sluggish according to some, and now it is multiples faster. Creating charts and downloading data into excel, all these things are dramatically faster.
“The product we have out today is dramatically different from the Version 1 roll out of a year ago,” he explains. “The initial product had some gaps, which we’ve been filling.”
Brittan adds: “Our goal is still to transition existing customers to Eikon and to best serve our customers. We’ve got new customers and we’ve got a bunch of customers who have successfully migrated over. We’re not forcing customers to change. We realise it’s an organic thing. We will naturally see the migration in time if the product is the best product. It is relatively new just one year out, so we will move customers at the pace that they want to move.”
What’s next? “We'll be rolling out new capabilities on close to a monthly basis. And in six months we’ll have a bunch of new capabilities. I don't want to talk about them. I just plan to deliver them.”
● SOURCE Wall Street & Technology
Changes make TR 'more unified internally' - James Smith
Monday 19 December 2011
The changes “will make us more unified internally and more competitive in the marketplace for years to come,” Smith said in a message to employees. He referred to working “to turn the world’s greatest collection of news and information assets into the world’s greatest news and information company”, and said “We have already come a long way since we announced our next generation of business leaders at the beginning of this month.”
Following last week’s appointment of Peter Warwick as chief people officer, Smith confirmed Deirdre Stanley as general counsel and James Powell as chief technology officer. “Both of them have remarkable track records and both are committed to working side by side with our business leaders to take this company into a new era,” he said.
“All of our organizational decisions are based on straightforward, durable principles: everything starts and ends with the customer, business is a team sport, and simpler is better. During the weeks ahead we will bed down our organizational structure, continuing to streamline the company and push authority, accountability and resources closer to the customer. I know it will be a relief for everyone to have the structure and leadership team firmly in place and to put this period of realignment behind us.
“2011 has been a year of challenges and changes. Those changes will make us more unified internally and more competitive in the marketplace for years to come.”
Separately, the president of the new financial and risk business unit that includes Reuters news agency, David Craig, told staff that after a year of tumultuous change, 2012 would be a defining year “and I am confident that the team and structure now in place will set us up to re-start our growth engine. There is no doubt that the markets are tough, and are likely to get worse in 2012 – but that should not deter us. Even in a downturn, and in markets that are changing fast, there are opportunities if we are agile enough to seize them.”
● SOURCE Reuters
Huge challenges for Reuters in 2012 - Stephen Adler
Wednesday 14 December 2011
Reuters faces enormous challenges in 2012 and beyond, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said on Wednesday.
“We must accelerate our pursuit of journalistic excellence, with the understanding that our news is a central resource for Thomson Reuters that must serve all the company’s customers,” he said in an end-of-year message to editorial staff seen by The Baron.
“As we’ve discussed many times, winning in our highly competitive markets requires us to differentiate ourselves by offering more value – not just more of the same. We will succeed by providing a combination of smart, forward-looking news coverage, more exclusives, richer enterprise journalism, effective data mining, memorable story-telling, targeted community-building, trenchant commentary and analysis, and better designed, easier-to-navigate news delivery channels.”
Adler said: “Throughout the year, many of you have asked: How do we remain fast, accurate, and fair while also providing the depth and insight you keep talking about? How do we consider the needs of a broad customer base when we’ve been asked to focus more narrowly in the past? There’s no easy answer, so we will have to ask the right questions with each assignment. Sometimes the value of a story will come from chasing the news and reporting each incremental move. Sometimes it will come from stepping away from the day-to-day to develop a longer-term story that will ultimately benefit the reader more. Often we will need to operate on two tracks simultaneously, with some people focusing on immediate news and others looking beyond the moment to go deeper and help our coverage win not just the hour or day, but the week, month and year. All this requires judgment more than blanket rules, which is why we’ve tried to cut down on many of the edicts.”
Adler said Reuters moves into 2012 with extraordinary backing from the new corporate leadership, the same staunch support received from Tom Glocer and his team in 2011. “Tom’s commitment to excellence, and his clarion call that news is the heart and soul of the company, have brought us to this moment and helped us lay the groundwork for stronger performance in the coming months. We will now be led by incoming CEO Jim Smith, to whom I reported when he was running the professional businesses and I was working to integrate news into their products. Jim spent much of his career in Thomson newspapers and has a deep understanding of, and great passion for, journalism. I can tell you from personal experience that Jim will be an ardent advocate for news quality and editorial integrity. As you get to know him, you'll also find that he is an extraordinary leader who combines great business instincts and discipline with humor, warmth, and decency.
“Bottom line: I am optimistic, energized, and eager to embrace the opportunities ahead. Our goal today, as it was when I began the job, is to be the number-one news provider in the world. As before, I’m in favor of anything that gets us there and against anything that gets in the way.”
● SOURCE Reuters
“We must accelerate our pursuit of journalistic excellence, with the understanding that our news is a central resource for Thomson Reuters that must serve all the company’s customers,” he said in an end-of-year message to editorial staff seen by The Baron.
“As we’ve discussed many times, winning in our highly competitive markets requires us to differentiate ourselves by offering more value – not just more of the same. We will succeed by providing a combination of smart, forward-looking news coverage, more exclusives, richer enterprise journalism, effective data mining, memorable story-telling, targeted community-building, trenchant commentary and analysis, and better designed, easier-to-navigate news delivery channels.”
Adler said: “Throughout the year, many of you have asked: How do we remain fast, accurate, and fair while also providing the depth and insight you keep talking about? How do we consider the needs of a broad customer base when we’ve been asked to focus more narrowly in the past? There’s no easy answer, so we will have to ask the right questions with each assignment. Sometimes the value of a story will come from chasing the news and reporting each incremental move. Sometimes it will come from stepping away from the day-to-day to develop a longer-term story that will ultimately benefit the reader more. Often we will need to operate on two tracks simultaneously, with some people focusing on immediate news and others looking beyond the moment to go deeper and help our coverage win not just the hour or day, but the week, month and year. All this requires judgment more than blanket rules, which is why we’ve tried to cut down on many of the edicts.”
Adler said Reuters moves into 2012 with extraordinary backing from the new corporate leadership, the same staunch support received from Tom Glocer and his team in 2011. “Tom’s commitment to excellence, and his clarion call that news is the heart and soul of the company, have brought us to this moment and helped us lay the groundwork for stronger performance in the coming months. We will now be led by incoming CEO Jim Smith, to whom I reported when he was running the professional businesses and I was working to integrate news into their products. Jim spent much of his career in Thomson newspapers and has a deep understanding of, and great passion for, journalism. I can tell you from personal experience that Jim will be an ardent advocate for news quality and editorial integrity. As you get to know him, you'll also find that he is an extraordinary leader who combines great business instincts and discipline with humor, warmth, and decency.
“Bottom line: I am optimistic, energized, and eager to embrace the opportunities ahead. Our goal today, as it was when I began the job, is to be the number-one news provider in the world. As before, I’m in favor of anything that gets us there and against anything that gets in the way.”
● SOURCE Reuters
Reuters managers leave in end-of-year cull
Wednesday 14 December 2011
Thomson Reuters’ incoming chief executive James Smith on Wednesday announced the appointment of a chief people officer – Peter Warwick – to take over the human resources function from Stephen Dando on 1 January with support from Dando until the end of March.
Warwick is currently chief operating officer of the group’s professional division and has been chief executive officer of the legal and tax and accounting businesses.
Dando is one of several Reuters era managers including senior editorial figures said by sources in New York to be leaving the company.
Smith, who takes over from Tom Glocer at the turn of the year, said solid progress had been achieved on the Customer First organisational design work and senior leadership appointments.
He said it concludes the Thomson-Reuters integration and the company now enters a new era.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Warwick is currently chief operating officer of the group’s professional division and has been chief executive officer of the legal and tax and accounting businesses.
Dando is one of several Reuters era managers including senior editorial figures said by sources in New York to be leaving the company.
Smith, who takes over from Tom Glocer at the turn of the year, said solid progress had been achieved on the Customer First organisational design work and senior leadership appointments.
He said it concludes the Thomson-Reuters integration and the company now enters a new era.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Tom Glocer might have stayed longer but for 'bad luck and overconfidence'
Thursday 08 December 2011
Tom Glocer might have stayed longer as Thomson Reuters chief executive were it not for a mix of bad luck and overconfidence, The Economist said on Thursday.
Glocer, whose retirement was announced a week ago, brought Reuters from the verge of bankruptcy to a state of rude health during seven years as the organisation’s CEO, the weekly said. “But he has done less well as chief executive of Thomson Reuters, the company created when Thomson, a Canadian purveyor of professional information for lawyers, accountants and others, bought Reuters in 2008. Bloomberg, the firm’s American rival, has almost wiped out its once-clear lead.”
New information platform Eikon, launched last year to compete with terminals offered by Bloomberg, has been taken up by just 8,000 out of Thomson Reuters’ 400,000 financial-data subscribers, The Economist said.
“Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg are the big fish in the professional-publishing pond, at least eight times larger than their nearest competitor. Bloomberg, besides expanding its terminals business, which has over 300,000 customers (at about $20,000 a pop), is pushing into government-related news and data…
“So what happened to Mr Glocer’s winning streak? His allies say his departure was always just a matter of time: once a firm buys another, it completes the takeover by putting its own people in charge. The Thomson family still owns 55% of the company, and some think the generous price [$17.2 billion] Mr Glocer secured from Thomson for Reuters made him all the more vulnerable.
“But he might have stayed longer were it not for a mix of bad luck and overconfidence. Eikon, intended to replace Reuters’ grab bag of services with a single offering, was designed to be more user-friendly than Bloomberg’s devices, but it was launched hastily and with flaws. With hindsight, a more gradual upgrade might have been more prudent.”
Perhaps Glocer’s replacement James Smith can do better, The Economist said. “He will almost certainly have a freer hand, and some upgrades to Eikon are planned for next year. But these are still stormy seas.” According to Claudio Aspesi, an analyst at investment bank Sanford C. Bernstein, it took most professional-publishing firms three to four years to recover from the 2001 recession. This time, Bernstein predicts, revenue growth at Thomson Reuters will not reach pre-crash levels until at least 2015.
One area of potential growth, though, is trading services. Changes in financial regulation in America and Europe will force a lot of trading in derivatives from the murky world of private “over-the-counter” deals onto exchanges, where contracts will be standardised and prices quoted. This presents both Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg with an opportunity to gather and sell data on these markets and perhaps to capture a share of the trade by linking banks and their clients through their own electronic trading platforms. The market for these derivatives is gigantic. A competitive edge there could make a big difference to both companies’ fortunes.
● SOURCE The Economist
Glocer, whose retirement was announced a week ago, brought Reuters from the verge of bankruptcy to a state of rude health during seven years as the organisation’s CEO, the weekly said. “But he has done less well as chief executive of Thomson Reuters, the company created when Thomson, a Canadian purveyor of professional information for lawyers, accountants and others, bought Reuters in 2008. Bloomberg, the firm’s American rival, has almost wiped out its once-clear lead.”
New information platform Eikon, launched last year to compete with terminals offered by Bloomberg, has been taken up by just 8,000 out of Thomson Reuters’ 400,000 financial-data subscribers, The Economist said.
“Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg are the big fish in the professional-publishing pond, at least eight times larger than their nearest competitor. Bloomberg, besides expanding its terminals business, which has over 300,000 customers (at about $20,000 a pop), is pushing into government-related news and data…
“So what happened to Mr Glocer’s winning streak? His allies say his departure was always just a matter of time: once a firm buys another, it completes the takeover by putting its own people in charge. The Thomson family still owns 55% of the company, and some think the generous price [$17.2 billion] Mr Glocer secured from Thomson for Reuters made him all the more vulnerable.
“But he might have stayed longer were it not for a mix of bad luck and overconfidence. Eikon, intended to replace Reuters’ grab bag of services with a single offering, was designed to be more user-friendly than Bloomberg’s devices, but it was launched hastily and with flaws. With hindsight, a more gradual upgrade might have been more prudent.”
Perhaps Glocer’s replacement James Smith can do better, The Economist said. “He will almost certainly have a freer hand, and some upgrades to Eikon are planned for next year. But these are still stormy seas.” According to Claudio Aspesi, an analyst at investment bank Sanford C. Bernstein, it took most professional-publishing firms three to four years to recover from the 2001 recession. This time, Bernstein predicts, revenue growth at Thomson Reuters will not reach pre-crash levels until at least 2015.
One area of potential growth, though, is trading services. Changes in financial regulation in America and Europe will force a lot of trading in derivatives from the murky world of private “over-the-counter” deals onto exchanges, where contracts will be standardised and prices quoted. This presents both Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg with an opportunity to gather and sell data on these markets and perhaps to capture a share of the trade by linking banks and their clients through their own electronic trading platforms. The market for these derivatives is gigantic. A competitive edge there could make a big difference to both companies’ fortunes.
● SOURCE The Economist
TR: Sorry tale of upheaval, clashes and disappointments - editor
Wednesday 07 December 2011
The Thomson Reuters merger has not lived up to the expectations of either consumers or shareholders and instead, like so many mergers and acquisitions, it has turned into a sorry tale of upheaval, clashes and disappointments, a London-based editor said on Wednesday.
The 2008 acquisition was billed as the deal that would blow rivals like Bloomberg out of the water. The idea was to create a Goliath in the $24 billion market for screen-based financial information that is used by banks and investment institutions around the world, wrote Richard Wachman, City editor of The Observer.
“The reality has been a sorry tale of management upheaval, culture clashes and disappointing product launches. In the latest chapter of the saga, chief executive Tom Glocer has announced his accelerated departure amid rumours he is being nudged out by Canada’s Thomson family, the dominant shareholder, and former owner of the Times before Rupert Murdoch,” Wachman wrote in The Observer’s sister newspaper The Guardian.
“Analysts say the share price has underperformed and complain that hoped-for synergies and innovation haven’t come through, despite all the trumpet blowing at the time of the transaction. The launch of the company’s new Eikon product was behind schedule and the offering was less robust than the market had envisaged, although adjustments may put that right.”
Bloomberg is closing the gap on Thomson Reuters after being well behind four years ago, Wachman said. Florida-based Burton-Taylor International Consulting’s research reveals that in 2007 Thomson Reuters spoke for more than 36 per cent of the market against 25 per cent for Bloomberg. But according to its estimates Bloomberg will have nearly caught up in 2011 with a 30.8 per cent market share against 31.4 per cent for Thomson Reuters.
“Something has gone horribly wrong. At the very least, the task of melding these two companies together has been far more complex than originally envisaged. A less kind interpretation is that management, which has cut many hundreds of jobs, has taken its eye off the ball, losing hapless investors billions along the way.”
● SOURCE The Guardian
The 2008 acquisition was billed as the deal that would blow rivals like Bloomberg out of the water. The idea was to create a Goliath in the $24 billion market for screen-based financial information that is used by banks and investment institutions around the world, wrote Richard Wachman, City editor of The Observer.
“The reality has been a sorry tale of management upheaval, culture clashes and disappointing product launches. In the latest chapter of the saga, chief executive Tom Glocer has announced his accelerated departure amid rumours he is being nudged out by Canada’s Thomson family, the dominant shareholder, and former owner of the Times before Rupert Murdoch,” Wachman wrote in The Observer’s sister newspaper The Guardian.
“Analysts say the share price has underperformed and complain that hoped-for synergies and innovation haven’t come through, despite all the trumpet blowing at the time of the transaction. The launch of the company’s new Eikon product was behind schedule and the offering was less robust than the market had envisaged, although adjustments may put that right.”
Bloomberg is closing the gap on Thomson Reuters after being well behind four years ago, Wachman said. Florida-based Burton-Taylor International Consulting’s research reveals that in 2007 Thomson Reuters spoke for more than 36 per cent of the market against 25 per cent for Bloomberg. But according to its estimates Bloomberg will have nearly caught up in 2011 with a 30.8 per cent market share against 31.4 per cent for Thomson Reuters.
“Something has gone horribly wrong. At the very least, the task of melding these two companies together has been far more complex than originally envisaged. A less kind interpretation is that management, which has cut many hundreds of jobs, has taken its eye off the ball, losing hapless investors billions along the way.”
● SOURCE The Guardian
New Thomson Reuters CEO backs editorial hiring plans - Stephen Adler
Wednesday 07 December 2011
Thomson Reuters’ new chief executive James Smith supports Reuters’ editorial growth strategy, Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief, said and will not curtail his hiring spree.
“We’re full speed ahead,” Adler told The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch website.
Some media analysts aren’t quite so sure, columnist Jon Friedman said. They suggest that Smith’s promotion as replacement for CEO Tom Glocer signifies the company’s desire to undercut Adler’s go-go spending ways. They believe that Thomson Reuters’ challenges will force Adler, appointed to the top editorial job in February, to curtail the big spending and eventually shrink the size of his staff.
Friedman said Adler couldn’t have sounded more confident that Smith, who takes over on 1 January, will continue to have “an extraordinary commitment” to Adler’s strategy of investing heavily to strengthen its commitment to enterprise reporting and to recruit journalists such as the WSJ’s Michael Williams and Bloomberg television executive Dan Colarusso.
“Adler said he, too, has heard the whispers from Thomson Reuters’ critics but declared: ‘This doesn’t change anything’,” Friedman wrote.
“What’s also not likely to change is the industry’s confusion about what Adler wants to accomplish,” Friedman wrote. “Does he want his operation to be true to its roots as a British-based wire service that reports doggedly on financial markets or a gleaming long-form journalism operation that wants to be known for its enterprise and investigative reporting? Can Adler make both sides co-exist?”
Adler has tried hard to change the culture of Reuters by wooing a plethora of non-wire-service journalists, Friedman said. “He is betting that he can maintain a strong position in the meat-and-potatoes work of covering the financial markets while making a name for Reuters in enterprise writing.
“In his first year, Adler and his team have succeeded in changing the company’s rather stodgy image. Now, they must find a way to continue the momentum at a time when the world at large expects him to rein in his growth plans.”
● SOURCE MarketWatch
“We’re full speed ahead,” Adler told The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch website.
Some media analysts aren’t quite so sure, columnist Jon Friedman said. They suggest that Smith’s promotion as replacement for CEO Tom Glocer signifies the company’s desire to undercut Adler’s go-go spending ways. They believe that Thomson Reuters’ challenges will force Adler, appointed to the top editorial job in February, to curtail the big spending and eventually shrink the size of his staff.
Friedman said Adler couldn’t have sounded more confident that Smith, who takes over on 1 January, will continue to have “an extraordinary commitment” to Adler’s strategy of investing heavily to strengthen its commitment to enterprise reporting and to recruit journalists such as the WSJ’s Michael Williams and Bloomberg television executive Dan Colarusso.
“Adler said he, too, has heard the whispers from Thomson Reuters’ critics but declared: ‘This doesn’t change anything’,” Friedman wrote.
“What’s also not likely to change is the industry’s confusion about what Adler wants to accomplish,” Friedman wrote. “Does he want his operation to be true to its roots as a British-based wire service that reports doggedly on financial markets or a gleaming long-form journalism operation that wants to be known for its enterprise and investigative reporting? Can Adler make both sides co-exist?”
Adler has tried hard to change the culture of Reuters by wooing a plethora of non-wire-service journalists, Friedman said. “He is betting that he can maintain a strong position in the meat-and-potatoes work of covering the financial markets while making a name for Reuters in enterprise writing.
“In his first year, Adler and his team have succeeded in changing the company’s rather stodgy image. Now, they must find a way to continue the momentum at a time when the world at large expects him to rein in his growth plans.”
● SOURCE MarketWatch
Executive changes beginning of the end of turbulent period - new CEO
Friday 02 December 2011
“Thomson Reuters is a company built to win in the information age,” he said in a message to the group’s 55,000 employees. “We have sustainable franchises. We have differentiating competitive advantage in many areas. And – most importantly – we have talented, dedicated people.
“We do many things very well. But there are some things we must do better. Yesterday’s announcement sets in place our next-generation leadership team. It is the beginning of the end of a turbulent period of executive changes. As I have said before, I believe business is a team sport.” The executives appointed to head new business units form a world-class team of operators that will lead to great heights in years to come.
Among the team’s first tasks will be completion of the organisation design work of the past several weeks. “That effort carries the project name ‘Customer First,’ because we are organizing our business around our customers and their needs. That customer theme is at the top of the list of things we must do better.
“Simplifying the organization and our approach to customers is another. Those will be guiding principles.”
Smith said he intended to focus on
● Defining and pursuing the most promising growth vectors in financial services
● Continuing to broaden the company’s value proposition beyond core content and research with high-value tools, software and services
● Exploiting its unique position at the intersection of regulation and finance
● Accelerating development of the business in fast-growing geographies around the world
● Simplifying internal commercial policies and practices
● Improving underlying technology platforms and dramatically improving product quality and customer experience
● Making Thomson Reuters the best place in the world to work.
Smith, chief operating officer until the change of command takes effect, promised an update on the new operating model before the year ends.
He added: “I accepted the CEO job with a great sense of personal excitement and gratitude to the many people who have been responsible for my success. That includes Tom Glocer. His shoes will be impossible to fill; I will have to do the job in my own way. But I also accepted with a deep sense of duty and commitment to the tens of thousands of my colleagues who have dedicated their talents, efforts and professional lives to this organization. Business may begin and end with the customer, but it is the Thomson Reuters people in the middle who make it all happen.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Tom Glocer out as Thomson family appoints new CEO
Thursday 01 December 2011
The Financial Times quoted people close to the company as saying that David Thomson, chairman, and Geoffrey Beattie, the Canadian family’s consigliere who runs its investment vehicle Woodbridge, have been frustrated with the Thomson Reuters share price, which has fallen from above $41 to $27.22 this year.
The company has undergone a series of structural changes and management shake-ups over the past six months to address the disappointing performance of its markets division, which was essentially the old Reuters and mainly served financial institutions.
Glocer, 52, pictured left, has led Thomson Reuters since 2008, when Canada’s Thomson family completed its acquisition of Reuters. A mergers and acquisitions lawyer, he joined Reuters in 1993 and became the agency’s first American chief executive and the first not to have been a journalist in 2001.
He negotiated Reuters’ sale to the owner of Thomson Financial shortly before the global financial crisis. The merged group enjoyed almost three years of better than expected cost savings from the deal, but has struggled in the last year to roll out a financial services product called Eikon that was meant to unify the two legacy companies’ multiple data products.
By replacing him, the Thomson family effectively removes the last senior Reuters executive from the merged company’s top echelon.
Smith, pictured right, is a former journalist who joined the Thomson Newspaper Group in 1987. Until a few months ago he was head of the professional unit, which sells legal, tax and accounting products. That business has weathered the financial crisis much better than markets.
“By the end of the year, the organizational strategy and budget work I have been leading will be complete, and the transition plan I launched last summer will have achieved its objectives,” Glocer said in a statement. “Jim Smith is a very talented executive with whom I have worked closely over the past four years; he is ready to lead Thomson Reuters.”
The company’s stock has lost about 30 per cent of its value over the past six months as its banking and financial customers laid off thousands of employees and slashed costs.
David Thomson said in a statement: “Tom will be remembered as the individual who turned around Reuters ten years ago, led the company to growth and guided its sale to form Thomson Reuters. Over the past four years, Tom successfully directed an extensive integration, expanded our business internationally, revitalized the Reuters news organization and championed talent across the entire business. The board joins me in thanking Tom for his dedication and service to our company and wishes the very best for him and his family.”
He added: “Jim Smith will provide strong leadership for Thomson Reuters at this juncture. He has earned the respect and confidence of his colleagues and the board alike. His instincts and his customer focus have been the basis of a remarkable career in our business.
“Working with Tom Glocer, the board oversaw the successful execution of an established succession plan in the second half of 2011 and we look forward to beginning the new year with a new management team, new organizational structure, and ever stronger commitment to deliver long-term, sustainable value for all shareholders.”
The new organisational structure will consist of the following business units: financial and risk, legal, intellectual property and science, tax and accounting, and global growth organisation.
● VIDEO
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | Reuters | The New York Times | Financial Times
Tom Glocer sees great things ahead for news
Tuesday 22 November 2011
Many people at Thomson Reuters are tired of organisational change and the rumour mill is hyperactive, CEO Tom Glocer said on Tuesday, but many of the group’s businesses are growing strongly and he sees great things ahead for news as a core distinguishing asset for the whole company.
The company’s financial position is rock-solid, the balance sheet is strong and the credit rating excellent, he said in a message to the group’s 55,000 staff worldwide as Americans prepare to celebrate Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday. Robert Daleo has done an exemplary job as chief financial officer and the transition to Stephane Bello is going smoothly.
Glocer said that before the year is out decisions will be taken and announced and 2012 will begin with a shared road map for success. “Meanwhile, the best thing you can do from any perspective is to stay focused on meeting your 2011 objectives.”
He told employees: “We can feel good about the work under way to rekindle growth in the businesses that have been struggling. I have been leading a major strategy effort focused on the financial information market, which I reviewed with our Board just last week. In some areas we have a steep climb ahead, but we have what it takes ultimately to succeed and I am working closely with the leaders of those businesses to get us back on the path to robust growth.”
Glocer mentioned powerful growth in the group’s enterprise, trading marketplaces, legal, tax and accounting, and intellectual property and science businesses. Regionally, the company was growing in rapidly developing markets in Asia, the Middle East/Africa, and Latin America.
“I am working directly with Media and Editorial, and I can tell you first-hand that we have built the strongest news organization I’ve seen in my 18 years working here. I see great things ahead for News as a core distinguishing asset for the whole company.”
Glocer said he was working together with chief operations officer James Smith to align the company with its customers’ evolving needs. “From talking to colleagues across our businesses, though, I know that many people are tired of organizational change and that the rumor mill is hyperactive. I understand. Change and the uncertainty that comes with it are hard to handle.”
He said a new operating model called Customer First was taking time because Smith was collaborating with the group’s business and functional leaders to get it right.
“Yes, our markets are changing. That’s true for most big companies these days. The fact that we are changing to keep pace may be a source of anxiety for some, but overall it should be a source of comfort. Any company that tries to stand still today will find itself moving backward,” he said. “This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all the good things about our company and that Thomson Reuters is blessed with many thousands of talented people who will settle for nothing less than excellence.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
The company’s financial position is rock-solid, the balance sheet is strong and the credit rating excellent, he said in a message to the group’s 55,000 staff worldwide as Americans prepare to celebrate Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday. Robert Daleo has done an exemplary job as chief financial officer and the transition to Stephane Bello is going smoothly.
Glocer said that before the year is out decisions will be taken and announced and 2012 will begin with a shared road map for success. “Meanwhile, the best thing you can do from any perspective is to stay focused on meeting your 2011 objectives.”
He told employees: “We can feel good about the work under way to rekindle growth in the businesses that have been struggling. I have been leading a major strategy effort focused on the financial information market, which I reviewed with our Board just last week. In some areas we have a steep climb ahead, but we have what it takes ultimately to succeed and I am working closely with the leaders of those businesses to get us back on the path to robust growth.”
Glocer mentioned powerful growth in the group’s enterprise, trading marketplaces, legal, tax and accounting, and intellectual property and science businesses. Regionally, the company was growing in rapidly developing markets in Asia, the Middle East/Africa, and Latin America.
“I am working directly with Media and Editorial, and I can tell you first-hand that we have built the strongest news organization I’ve seen in my 18 years working here. I see great things ahead for News as a core distinguishing asset for the whole company.”
Glocer said he was working together with chief operations officer James Smith to align the company with its customers’ evolving needs. “From talking to colleagues across our businesses, though, I know that many people are tired of organizational change and that the rumor mill is hyperactive. I understand. Change and the uncertainty that comes with it are hard to handle.”
He said a new operating model called Customer First was taking time because Smith was collaborating with the group’s business and functional leaders to get it right.
“Yes, our markets are changing. That’s true for most big companies these days. The fact that we are changing to keep pace may be a source of anxiety for some, but overall it should be a source of comfort. Any company that tries to stand still today will find itself moving backward,” he said. “This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all the good things about our company and that Thomson Reuters is blessed with many thousands of talented people who will settle for nothing less than excellence.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Pension talks 'constructive and positive'
Tuesday 15 November 2011
The Pension Review Group has reacted with cautious optimism to a letter from the chairman of Reuters’ two UK pension funds in which he says discussions with Thomson Reuters on a new pension agreement have been “constructive and positive”.
The comments by Greg Meekings, chairman of Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme, were in response to an earlier letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean in which she underlined pensioners’ continuing concerns about the declining value of their pensions. RPF, the larger of the two funds, has nearly 8,000 members.
With discretionary annual increases paid in only three of the last nine years the real value of RPF pensions has dropped substantially because of inflation, the PRG said. The group calculates that pensioners would need an increase of 16.7 per cent to bring the value of pensions back to the levels of early 2003. The rise needed will jump to 23.3 per cent if no increase is awarded in January.
Discussions between RPF, SPS and the company aim to produce a new pensions agreement effective from 31 March 2012. The current agreement allows for annual inflation increases only if the fund is in surplus. Both the RPF and the SPS are currently in deficit. The company’s last major injection of funds was in 2006.
The PRG said it was encouraged by comments made last December by chief executive Tom Glocer expressing his concern about the position of UK pensioners and calling on those responsible to find a way of resolving the problem, both now and in the future. “I care a lot about our obligations to our pensioners and all our pension plans around the world,” Glocer said in a talk to The Reuter Society. “We’ll do whatever we need to do.”
The PRG met last month to consider Meekings’ letter and decided to await the outcome of current discussions before taking any further action, in the hope that positive comments so far would translate into an agreement which would guarantee an annual increase in pensions.
The group was established in 2004 by retired staff of Reuters. Its objective is to restore inflation-linked increases and bring certainty to pensioners in future by ensuring there is a sound agreement in place that protects the value of pensions and the security of the pension fund.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
The comments by Greg Meekings, chairman of Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme, were in response to an earlier letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean in which she underlined pensioners’ continuing concerns about the declining value of their pensions. RPF, the larger of the two funds, has nearly 8,000 members.
With discretionary annual increases paid in only three of the last nine years the real value of RPF pensions has dropped substantially because of inflation, the PRG said. The group calculates that pensioners would need an increase of 16.7 per cent to bring the value of pensions back to the levels of early 2003. The rise needed will jump to 23.3 per cent if no increase is awarded in January.
Discussions between RPF, SPS and the company aim to produce a new pensions agreement effective from 31 March 2012. The current agreement allows for annual inflation increases only if the fund is in surplus. Both the RPF and the SPS are currently in deficit. The company’s last major injection of funds was in 2006.
The PRG said it was encouraged by comments made last December by chief executive Tom Glocer expressing his concern about the position of UK pensioners and calling on those responsible to find a way of resolving the problem, both now and in the future. “I care a lot about our obligations to our pensioners and all our pension plans around the world,” Glocer said in a talk to The Reuter Society. “We’ll do whatever we need to do.”
The PRG met last month to consider Meekings’ letter and decided to await the outcome of current discussions before taking any further action, in the hope that positive comments so far would translate into an agreement which would guarantee an annual increase in pensions.
The group was established in 2004 by retired staff of Reuters. Its objective is to restore inflation-linked increases and bring certainty to pensioners in future by ensuring there is a sound agreement in place that protects the value of pensions and the security of the pension fund.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
Bloomberg v Thomson Reuters battle about to get bloodier - WSJ
Monday 14 November 2011
Retrenchments on Wall Street are likely to hurt the market for financial data, intensifying competition between Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Steps the two firms took to diversify in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis are being tested.
The $23.7 billion global market for financial data is expected to grow only about two per cent this year, according to market data research and consulting firm Burton-Taylor International Consulting, down from 4.2 per cent growth last year, the Journal said. While the market shrank slightly in 2009, it grew in the low double-digits from 2006 to 2008.
These businesses tend to ebb and flow with Wall Street employment. The global finance industry is downsizing as firms brace for a prolonged slowdown due to weak growth, tighter regulations and instability in Europe.
Bloomberg so far has managed to sharply outperform the broader market. It expects 2011 revenue to rise about 11 per cent to $7.6 billion, chief executive Dan Doctoroff said. Revenue rose 10 per cent last year, when the company topped 300,000 subscribers to its terminal, a bundle of financial data, tools and news that costs subscribers about $20,000 a year. Thomson Reuters offers its comparable product for about the same price, though cost varies depending on features, the Journal said.
It said Burton-Taylor estimates Bloomberg lifted its share of the overall market to 30.3 per cent last year from 25.1 per cent in 2005. In contrast, Thomson Reuters’ share slid to 33.2 per cent last year from 37.4 per cent in 2005. Thomson Reuters’ stock is down about 20 per cent year-to-date.
Bloomberg executives said the company likely will slow hiring in 2012 after increasing the size of its work force by about 35 per cent over the past three years. “We feel like we need to give the organization a little more time to breathe,” Doctoroff said.
Thomson Reuters’ financial services business, which has a little more than 400,000 customers of various desktop products, increased revenue 5.5 per cent to $5.64 billion in the year’s first nine months.
“The financial-services division, which accounts for just over half of Thomson Reuters’s revenue, has stumbled amid the disappointing performance of Eikon, its new desktop offering for financial professionals,” the Journal said. “The product now has about 8,000 active users a year after its launch, which it said was slower than expected. Executives said recently that a recent reorganization of the Markets division is likely to improve sales in 2012, though it won’t drive revenue growth in Markets until 2013.”
Chief executive Tom Glocer said Eikon started slowly in part because the product wasn’t ready for “every type of user at every institution”. An upgrade is pending. He also said Eikon was just one of several investments that overall have helped revenue in markets edge up in the most recent quarter ended 30 September.
Meanwhile, the professional division, which serves the legal, tax and accounting industries, increased revenue by 10 per cent to $3.93 billion during the first nine months.
“Thomson Reuters, Mr. Glocer said, has recognized for a long time the trend toward ‘fewer bums on seats’ in the financial-services sector and has shifted dollars to fast-growing areas such as governance risk and compliance, which helps financial institutions cope with growing regulatory burdens,” the Journal reported.
“I think we’re well positioned even in a downturn because of the other weapons we have,” Mr. Glocer said. Thomson Reuters spent about $850 million last year on acquisitions across its businesses.
● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal
The $23.7 billion global market for financial data is expected to grow only about two per cent this year, according to market data research and consulting firm Burton-Taylor International Consulting, down from 4.2 per cent growth last year, the Journal said. While the market shrank slightly in 2009, it grew in the low double-digits from 2006 to 2008.
These businesses tend to ebb and flow with Wall Street employment. The global finance industry is downsizing as firms brace for a prolonged slowdown due to weak growth, tighter regulations and instability in Europe.
Bloomberg so far has managed to sharply outperform the broader market. It expects 2011 revenue to rise about 11 per cent to $7.6 billion, chief executive Dan Doctoroff said. Revenue rose 10 per cent last year, when the company topped 300,000 subscribers to its terminal, a bundle of financial data, tools and news that costs subscribers about $20,000 a year. Thomson Reuters offers its comparable product for about the same price, though cost varies depending on features, the Journal said.
It said Burton-Taylor estimates Bloomberg lifted its share of the overall market to 30.3 per cent last year from 25.1 per cent in 2005. In contrast, Thomson Reuters’ share slid to 33.2 per cent last year from 37.4 per cent in 2005. Thomson Reuters’ stock is down about 20 per cent year-to-date.
Bloomberg executives said the company likely will slow hiring in 2012 after increasing the size of its work force by about 35 per cent over the past three years. “We feel like we need to give the organization a little more time to breathe,” Doctoroff said.
Thomson Reuters’ financial services business, which has a little more than 400,000 customers of various desktop products, increased revenue 5.5 per cent to $5.64 billion in the year’s first nine months.
“The financial-services division, which accounts for just over half of Thomson Reuters’s revenue, has stumbled amid the disappointing performance of Eikon, its new desktop offering for financial professionals,” the Journal said. “The product now has about 8,000 active users a year after its launch, which it said was slower than expected. Executives said recently that a recent reorganization of the Markets division is likely to improve sales in 2012, though it won’t drive revenue growth in Markets until 2013.”
Chief executive Tom Glocer said Eikon started slowly in part because the product wasn’t ready for “every type of user at every institution”. An upgrade is pending. He also said Eikon was just one of several investments that overall have helped revenue in markets edge up in the most recent quarter ended 30 September.
Meanwhile, the professional division, which serves the legal, tax and accounting industries, increased revenue by 10 per cent to $3.93 billion during the first nine months.
“Thomson Reuters, Mr. Glocer said, has recognized for a long time the trend toward ‘fewer bums on seats’ in the financial-services sector and has shifted dollars to fast-growing areas such as governance risk and compliance, which helps financial institutions cope with growing regulatory burdens,” the Journal reported.
“I think we’re well positioned even in a downturn because of the other weapons we have,” Mr. Glocer said. Thomson Reuters spent about $850 million last year on acquisitions across its businesses.
● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal
Tom Glocer enforces Thomson Reuters ethics code
Sunday 13 November 2011
All staff are required to electronically acknowledge that they have read the code and must do so by the end of January at the latest. Improper activities can be reported on a business compliance and ethics hotline.
Nothing is more important to the business than customers’ trust, Glocer said in a memo circulated last week to all staff under the heading “Integrity matters”.
“We’ve earned our reputation over many decades. It could be destroyed in a single day, by one thoughtless action. That’s why you need to carefully review our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics … even if you've read it before. It’s there so we all understand the conduct that is expected of us, and it tells you whom to consult for guidance on complex issues. It’s vitally important to me – and I’m sure it is to you as well – to be part of a company with such a long-established reputation for integrity.
“Integrity matters. Judge every action not only by whether it’s legal or permitted by the Code but whether it’s right.
“If you see any of our colleagues breaking or even bending our guidelines, report that immediately to your manager, the Human Resources department or the attorney who supports your business. Failing that, the Hotline is available to you in many languages, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is every employee’s right and responsibility to use one of these avenues to report improper activities.”
Glocer added: “No business deal or strategic objective is worth sacrificing the reputation that we worked so hard to build and of which we are all so justifiably proud.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Analyst cuts price target on TR stock
Wednesday 02 November 2011
A Canadian analyst cut his price target for Thomson Reuters shares by $5 to $35 on Wednesday following the company's third quarter results.
Robert Bek of Toronto investment bank CIBC said Tuesday’s results – a higher-than-expected rise in third-quarter profit and revenue – were “decent”. But he noted chief executive Tom Glocer’s forecast that growth in its key markets division will likely have to wait until 2013 as restructuring efforts announced in July play out.
“As such, we believe the Street will discount numbers further while waiting on execution,” Bek said. He maintained a “sector performer” rating on the stock.
Thomson Reuters shares traded 0.24 per cent higher at $29.09 in New York on Wednesday. In Toronto the stock was 0.57 per cent lower at C$29.53.
● SOURCE The Globe and Mail
Robert Bek of Toronto investment bank CIBC said Tuesday’s results – a higher-than-expected rise in third-quarter profit and revenue – were “decent”. But he noted chief executive Tom Glocer’s forecast that growth in its key markets division will likely have to wait until 2013 as restructuring efforts announced in July play out.
“As such, we believe the Street will discount numbers further while waiting on execution,” Bek said. He maintained a “sector performer” rating on the stock.
Thomson Reuters shares traded 0.24 per cent higher at $29.09 in New York on Wednesday. In Toronto the stock was 0.57 per cent lower at C$29.53.
● SOURCE The Globe and Mail
Tom Glocer: ‘We’re not magicians’
Tuesday 01 November 2011
Benefits of the recent reorganisation at Thomson Reuters may not fully kick in until 2013, chief executive Tom Glocer said on Tuesday.
“We’re not magicians,” he said in an interview after the company reported a higher-than-expected rise in third-quarter profit and revenue.
Glocer was interviewed in New York by Reuters’ media correspondent Jennifer Saba who said he is under pressure from the board and the controlling shareholder, Canada's Thomson family, to increase the group’s market share, particularly for its financial industry products. Sources familiar with the board's thinking said in July he had about a year to make that happen, she reported.
In September Thomson Reuters said it would merge its two operating divisions – the strongly performing professional serving mainly lawyers and accountants, and the struggling markets, which targets banks and other financial institutions.
“We expect the benefit of these changes will improve sales performance in 2012 and benefit 2013 revenue growth,” Glocer said in a statement accompanying the Q3 release.
“What is clear at this point is that 2012 will not look particularly good,” said Claudio Aspesi, a London analyst. “Things are going to get worse before they get better ... even 2013 is a statement of optimistic faith in a recovery.”
Glocer said conditions remained tough in the financial markets. “But that’s not a good enough excuse as various competitors were still able to grow their businesses," he said in a memo to staff. The company would grow by driving sales in fast-growing markets and taking share in slower ones, he said.
As part of the September shakeup, James Smith, former head of the professional division, was elevated to the new role of chief operating officer, putting him in a strong position to succeed Glocer.
● SOURCE Reuters
“We’re not magicians,” he said in an interview after the company reported a higher-than-expected rise in third-quarter profit and revenue.
Glocer was interviewed in New York by Reuters’ media correspondent Jennifer Saba who said he is under pressure from the board and the controlling shareholder, Canada's Thomson family, to increase the group’s market share, particularly for its financial industry products. Sources familiar with the board's thinking said in July he had about a year to make that happen, she reported.
In September Thomson Reuters said it would merge its two operating divisions – the strongly performing professional serving mainly lawyers and accountants, and the struggling markets, which targets banks and other financial institutions.
“We expect the benefit of these changes will improve sales performance in 2012 and benefit 2013 revenue growth,” Glocer said in a statement accompanying the Q3 release.
“What is clear at this point is that 2012 will not look particularly good,” said Claudio Aspesi, a London analyst. “Things are going to get worse before they get better ... even 2013 is a statement of optimistic faith in a recovery.”
Glocer said conditions remained tough in the financial markets. “But that’s not a good enough excuse as various competitors were still able to grow their businesses," he said in a memo to staff. The company would grow by driving sales in fast-growing markets and taking share in slower ones, he said.
As part of the September shakeup, James Smith, former head of the professional division, was elevated to the new role of chief operating officer, putting him in a strong position to succeed Glocer.
● SOURCE Reuters
Thomson Reuters Q3 earnings beat estimates
Tuesday 01 November 2011
Thomson Reuters’ third-quarter profit rose by 10 per cent, higher than expected, as strength in its professional division offset weakness in the markets business.
The company, in Q3 results announced on Tuesday, reaffirmed its outlook for 2011 as its margins improved.
In September the company said it would merge the professional division, which serves mainly lawyers and accountants, with the struggling markets division, which targets banks and other financial institutions.
“We expect the benefit of these changes will improve sales performance in 2012 and benefit 2013 revenue growth,” chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement.
Markets accounts for about 58 per cent of overall group revenue. The division posted revenue growth of just one per cent as banks continued to slash jobs and costs.
The company has also been hurt by the slow uptake of its new Eikon desktop product for traders and analysts, Reuters reported. It sold or migrated 32,000 Eikons by the end of September, up from 28,000 three months earlier.
“Conditions were challenging in some of our markets, but that’s not a good enough excuse as various competitors were still able to grow their businesses,” Glocer said in a memo to staff. The company would grow by driving sales in fast-growing markets and taking share in slower ones, he said.
In July Reuters reported sources familiar with board thinking saying Glocer was under pressure from directors and the company’s controlling shareholder, Canada’s Thomson family, to improve performance. At that time, sources said he had about a year to make that happen.
James Smith, former head of the professional division, was elevated to the new role of chief operating officer in September, putting him in a strong position to succeed Glocer.
Thomson Reuters reported third-quarter revenue of $3.26 billion, up five per cent before currency changes. Analysts had expected $3.23 billion.
Revenue in the professional division, which accounts for 42 per cent of overall revenue, increased 10 per cent after growing eight per cent in the second quarter. The one per cent revenue growth in markets was unchanged from the second quarter.
Adjusted earnings per share rose to 56 cents from 45 cents in the same quarter last year. Analysts had expected 53 cents.
Thomson Reuters said it still expects revenue to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage rate in 2011.
The company’s underlying operating margin improved to 22 per cent, from 21.2 per cent a year earlier.
Thomson Reuters shares have fallen 20 per cent this year, worse than the market at large.
● SOURCE Reuters
The company, in Q3 results announced on Tuesday, reaffirmed its outlook for 2011 as its margins improved.
In September the company said it would merge the professional division, which serves mainly lawyers and accountants, with the struggling markets division, which targets banks and other financial institutions.
“We expect the benefit of these changes will improve sales performance in 2012 and benefit 2013 revenue growth,” chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement.
Markets accounts for about 58 per cent of overall group revenue. The division posted revenue growth of just one per cent as banks continued to slash jobs and costs.
The company has also been hurt by the slow uptake of its new Eikon desktop product for traders and analysts, Reuters reported. It sold or migrated 32,000 Eikons by the end of September, up from 28,000 three months earlier.
“Conditions were challenging in some of our markets, but that’s not a good enough excuse as various competitors were still able to grow their businesses,” Glocer said in a memo to staff. The company would grow by driving sales in fast-growing markets and taking share in slower ones, he said.
In July Reuters reported sources familiar with board thinking saying Glocer was under pressure from directors and the company’s controlling shareholder, Canada’s Thomson family, to improve performance. At that time, sources said he had about a year to make that happen.
James Smith, former head of the professional division, was elevated to the new role of chief operating officer in September, putting him in a strong position to succeed Glocer.
Thomson Reuters reported third-quarter revenue of $3.26 billion, up five per cent before currency changes. Analysts had expected $3.23 billion.
Revenue in the professional division, which accounts for 42 per cent of overall revenue, increased 10 per cent after growing eight per cent in the second quarter. The one per cent revenue growth in markets was unchanged from the second quarter.
Adjusted earnings per share rose to 56 cents from 45 cents in the same quarter last year. Analysts had expected 53 cents.
Thomson Reuters said it still expects revenue to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage rate in 2011.
The company’s underlying operating margin improved to 22 per cent, from 21.2 per cent a year earlier.
Thomson Reuters shares have fallen 20 per cent this year, worse than the market at large.
● SOURCE Reuters
Another major shake-up as Thomson Reuters disbands dual structure
Wednesday 28 September 2011
In the second major management shake-up in two months, Thomson Reuters disbanded its two-division structure on Wednesday and promoted a senior executive to the new role of chief operating officer. Tom Glocer remains chief executive. Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, will leave next year.
The company said James Smith, chief executive officer of the professional division, would become chief operating officer immediately. At the same time, the professional and markets divisions are disbanded and will “transition to a set of focused business units” reporting to head office.
Both Daleo and Smith were Thomson Corporation executives when the Toronto-based company bought Reuters in 2008.
“The changes we are announcing today will streamline our organization and enable us to work better across business units to achieve growth and capture operating efficiencies from scale,” said Glocer. “The professional markets in which we operate are marked by increasing collaboration among specialists and Thomson Reuters must operate with the speed and agility needed to serve these demanding professionals.”
Daleo, chief financial officer since 1998, will retire in July 2012 when he turns 63. Stephane Bello, chief financial officer of the professional division, will succeed him as chief financial officer of Thomson Reuters, effective 1 January 2012. Daleo will then serve as vice-chairman of the group until his retirement.
David Thomson, chairman of Thomson Reuters, said: “Bob Daleo has guided the financial operations of the company for more than a decade through three chief executives. Retirement has been anticipated for some time and we shall miss the presence of a trusted and valued colleague. Bob’s contributions to the businesses have been immense. Our evolution into a global electronic information company owes a great debt to him. Bob’s advice and leadership will be sorely missed, but those qualities remain in place over the months ahead to all our benefit.”
“Stephane Bello is the perfect choice to succeed Bob because of his strategic and analytical strengths, proven leadership abilities and deep knowledge of the company and our markets,” said Glocer. “He will work closely with Bob, Jim and me over the next several months to ensure a smooth transition and uphold the high standards of integrity and financial reporting set by Bob Daleo.”
Following the sudden departure in July of Devin Wenig, head of markets, Thomson Reuters promoted Smith, chief executive of the professional division that caters to lawyers, accountants and scientists, to the new role of chief operating officer.
The Financial Times reported that the latest moves take some burden from Glocer, who took hands-on control of markets after Wenig’s exit, which was seen as a sign of the group’s controlling shareholder, Canada’s Thomson family, exerting tighter control.
Glocer told the FT that the split into markets and professional divisions had made sense when Thomson Corporation bought Reuters and needed to concentrate on merging its financial data businesses without distracting its professional units.
“Certainly for the first two years it worked very well like that. This year, I concluded markets wasn’t coming out of the integration the way it needed to and I had to take the first step in July,” he said. “In the perfect world, markets would have been growing faster this year and I would have moved in an orderly way to this structure” in 2012, he said.
The FT said Smith’s promotion could elevate his standing as a possible internal successor to Glocer, who said: “He’s always been in the frame as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not planning to go anywhere.”
In a message to staff, Glocer said his strategic goals were simple: to work better across business units to meet the increasingly complex demands of customers and capture growth opportunities; to leverage Thomson Reuters’ scale and achieve efficiencies by building innovative technology platforms that can be shared across the company; and to square off against competitors as a whole company which is greater than the sum of its parts.
He said the priorities he set in July for the markets division of restarting the sales engine and resetting Eikon in the context of the company’s broader product strategy had not changed, nor had the goal of creating a strong performance culture.
“These last two months acting as both CEO of Thomson Reuters and CEO of the Markets division have convinced me of two important things. First, no matter what labels we apply to our units, we have great people who are eager to work together to better serve our customers and grow our company. Second, this must be a team effort but with clearly defined roles and accountability for performance. I am looking forward to working closely with Jim, Bob, Stephane and our other leaders to achieve success and excellence at Thomson Reuters.”
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times
The company said James Smith, chief executive officer of the professional division, would become chief operating officer immediately. At the same time, the professional and markets divisions are disbanded and will “transition to a set of focused business units” reporting to head office.
Both Daleo and Smith were Thomson Corporation executives when the Toronto-based company bought Reuters in 2008.
“The changes we are announcing today will streamline our organization and enable us to work better across business units to achieve growth and capture operating efficiencies from scale,” said Glocer. “The professional markets in which we operate are marked by increasing collaboration among specialists and Thomson Reuters must operate with the speed and agility needed to serve these demanding professionals.”
Daleo, chief financial officer since 1998, will retire in July 2012 when he turns 63. Stephane Bello, chief financial officer of the professional division, will succeed him as chief financial officer of Thomson Reuters, effective 1 January 2012. Daleo will then serve as vice-chairman of the group until his retirement.
David Thomson, chairman of Thomson Reuters, said: “Bob Daleo has guided the financial operations of the company for more than a decade through three chief executives. Retirement has been anticipated for some time and we shall miss the presence of a trusted and valued colleague. Bob’s contributions to the businesses have been immense. Our evolution into a global electronic information company owes a great debt to him. Bob’s advice and leadership will be sorely missed, but those qualities remain in place over the months ahead to all our benefit.”
“Stephane Bello is the perfect choice to succeed Bob because of his strategic and analytical strengths, proven leadership abilities and deep knowledge of the company and our markets,” said Glocer. “He will work closely with Bob, Jim and me over the next several months to ensure a smooth transition and uphold the high standards of integrity and financial reporting set by Bob Daleo.”
Following the sudden departure in July of Devin Wenig, head of markets, Thomson Reuters promoted Smith, chief executive of the professional division that caters to lawyers, accountants and scientists, to the new role of chief operating officer.
The Financial Times reported that the latest moves take some burden from Glocer, who took hands-on control of markets after Wenig’s exit, which was seen as a sign of the group’s controlling shareholder, Canada’s Thomson family, exerting tighter control.
Glocer told the FT that the split into markets and professional divisions had made sense when Thomson Corporation bought Reuters and needed to concentrate on merging its financial data businesses without distracting its professional units.
“Certainly for the first two years it worked very well like that. This year, I concluded markets wasn’t coming out of the integration the way it needed to and I had to take the first step in July,” he said. “In the perfect world, markets would have been growing faster this year and I would have moved in an orderly way to this structure” in 2012, he said.
The FT said Smith’s promotion could elevate his standing as a possible internal successor to Glocer, who said: “He’s always been in the frame as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not planning to go anywhere.”
In a message to staff, Glocer said his strategic goals were simple: to work better across business units to meet the increasingly complex demands of customers and capture growth opportunities; to leverage Thomson Reuters’ scale and achieve efficiencies by building innovative technology platforms that can be shared across the company; and to square off against competitors as a whole company which is greater than the sum of its parts.
He said the priorities he set in July for the markets division of restarting the sales engine and resetting Eikon in the context of the company’s broader product strategy had not changed, nor had the goal of creating a strong performance culture.
“These last two months acting as both CEO of Thomson Reuters and CEO of the Markets division have convinced me of two important things. First, no matter what labels we apply to our units, we have great people who are eager to work together to better serve our customers and grow our company. Second, this must be a team effort but with clearly defined roles and accountability for performance. I am looking forward to working closely with Jim, Bob, Stephane and our other leaders to achieve success and excellence at Thomson Reuters.”
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times
Reuters v Bloomberg battle 'may change news'
Thursday 22 September 2011
The battle for dominance between Reuters and Bloomberg may change the way news is gathered and distributed, a leading US media commentator says.
Peter Osnos, a former Washington Post correspondent, said the recent hiring of Alix Freedman, a Pulitzer prize-winning 27-year veteran of The Wall Street Journal, as global editor for ethics and standards was another signal that Thomson Reuters is in a major contest for dominance with its principal rival, Bloomberg.
Osnos is founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs books and vice-chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review. Writing in The Atlantic, he noted that Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said that in Freedman’s new job she will work “closely with reporters and editors on major stories, final-reading many signature pieces and holding us all to the high standards set out in Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and the Reuters Handbook of Journalism”.
Osnos also noted recent high-profile arrivals at Thomson Reuters and said Bloomberg had amassed a similarly impressive roster as it launches its opinion section and invests in its multiple news teams in Washington and around the world.
“The growth of Thomson Reuters since their merger in 2008 and the rise of Bloomberg … are major developments in journalism that aren’t fully recognized by the public at large because so much of their activity and income comes from financial data on terminals and in specialized packages,” he said. “Unlike the leading newspapers in this arena that also have formidable ranks of reporters, commentators and editors – the New York Times, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal – the lack of a daily anchor in print seems to reduce the visibility of their output in the traditional competition for attention in mainstream news circles.”
Because Bloomberg is privately owned, it is hard to know just how profitable it is, Osnos said, but every indication is that it has come through the prolonged financial crisis since 2008 without any meaningful loss of momentum.
“Thomson Reuters is a more complicated situation. According to a recent takeout in the Wall Street Journal, the Thomson family and its investment arm, Woodbridge, which controls the majority of shares in the enterprise, is ‘impatient with the company’s performance.’
Like Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters’ revenue is significantly tied to its sales of sophisticated and extensive material to Wall Street and to the international banking community through its markets division. Over the summer, Thomson Reuters restructured the markets division, leading to the departure of six top executives. The division now reports to CEO Tom Glocer. The stock price of Thomson Reuters has been lagging, and posted a 52-week low recently, a drop of almost 20 per cent this year, Osnos said.
“But assuming the shake-up on the financial side and the strengthening of its already formidable news operation gain the necessary traction, its competition with Bloomberg will be a vitally important aspect of how journalism is adapting to the continuing turbulence in the industry …
“With so much uncertainty elsewhere in the news business, the robust competition between Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg looms especially large in the overall future of news gathering. With thousands of reporters and strong leadership teams, both companies are bound to be factors in the news business in the digital age, even if their overwhelming profitability is tied to financial data.” Osnos said The Wall Street Journal's loss of Freedman was much more than a job shift. “It is a measure of bigger changes in how news and data are being collected, paid for, and distributed.”
● SOURCE The Atlantic
Peter Osnos, a former Washington Post correspondent, said the recent hiring of Alix Freedman, a Pulitzer prize-winning 27-year veteran of The Wall Street Journal, as global editor for ethics and standards was another signal that Thomson Reuters is in a major contest for dominance with its principal rival, Bloomberg.
Osnos is founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs books and vice-chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review. Writing in The Atlantic, he noted that Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said that in Freedman’s new job she will work “closely with reporters and editors on major stories, final-reading many signature pieces and holding us all to the high standards set out in Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and the Reuters Handbook of Journalism”.
Osnos also noted recent high-profile arrivals at Thomson Reuters and said Bloomberg had amassed a similarly impressive roster as it launches its opinion section and invests in its multiple news teams in Washington and around the world.
“The growth of Thomson Reuters since their merger in 2008 and the rise of Bloomberg … are major developments in journalism that aren’t fully recognized by the public at large because so much of their activity and income comes from financial data on terminals and in specialized packages,” he said. “Unlike the leading newspapers in this arena that also have formidable ranks of reporters, commentators and editors – the New York Times, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal – the lack of a daily anchor in print seems to reduce the visibility of their output in the traditional competition for attention in mainstream news circles.”
Because Bloomberg is privately owned, it is hard to know just how profitable it is, Osnos said, but every indication is that it has come through the prolonged financial crisis since 2008 without any meaningful loss of momentum.
“Thomson Reuters is a more complicated situation. According to a recent takeout in the Wall Street Journal, the Thomson family and its investment arm, Woodbridge, which controls the majority of shares in the enterprise, is ‘impatient with the company’s performance.’
Like Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters’ revenue is significantly tied to its sales of sophisticated and extensive material to Wall Street and to the international banking community through its markets division. Over the summer, Thomson Reuters restructured the markets division, leading to the departure of six top executives. The division now reports to CEO Tom Glocer. The stock price of Thomson Reuters has been lagging, and posted a 52-week low recently, a drop of almost 20 per cent this year, Osnos said.
“But assuming the shake-up on the financial side and the strengthening of its already formidable news operation gain the necessary traction, its competition with Bloomberg will be a vitally important aspect of how journalism is adapting to the continuing turbulence in the industry …
“With so much uncertainty elsewhere in the news business, the robust competition between Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg looms especially large in the overall future of news gathering. With thousands of reporters and strong leadership teams, both companies are bound to be factors in the news business in the digital age, even if their overwhelming profitability is tied to financial data.” Osnos said The Wall Street Journal's loss of Freedman was much more than a job shift. “It is a measure of bigger changes in how news and data are being collected, paid for, and distributed.”
● SOURCE The Atlantic
Police drop sources order
Tuesday 20 September 2011
London's Metropolitan police wanted a court order to force the newspaper's reporters to reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed a reporter could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act.
Tuesday’s Scotland Yard announcement came not long after hundreds of media people discussed the police initiative and other press freedom issues. The event, chaired by Reuters editor-at-large Sir Harold Evans, was attended by a top-level contingent from Thomson Reuters including chairman David Thomson, CEO Tom Glocer, pictured, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, and other editors and executives.
Police left open the possibility the so-called production order could be applied for again, but a senior police source said: “It’s off the agenda. There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists.”
Editors speaking at the Thomson Reuters event recognised Fleet Street had to mend its ways but appealed to the government not to crush Britain's cherished free speech with draconian laws. Top lawyers, editors and politicians agreed during the debate on “The Press We Deserve” that Britain’s existing Press Complaints Commission, a voluntary self-regulatory body, had failed in its duty to keep the press honest but differed sharply over the solution.
Evans said the British press was in its greatest danger since two journalists were jailed for not revealing their sources in 1963.
Editor’s note: The original version of this report headed “Police drop sources order after Thomson Reuters debate” erroneously implied that the police announcement was a consequence of the Thomson Reuters debate. It was not. It was a coincidence. Mea culpa.
Photo: Julie Mollins
● CLICK to view Reuters video
● SOURCE The Guardian | Reuters
Pensioners press for automatic inflation increases
Monday 12 September 2011
The Pension Review Group is once again focusing attention on its campaign to win automatic inflation rises for all Reuters pensioners.
It has contacted the chairman of the Reuters Pension Fund trustees, Greg Meekings, and requested that members should be consulted before he signs a new deal with Thomson Reuters, which he expects to do some time in the next six months.
“Our concern is that pensioners will be presented with a solution … which may not be acceptable to us," the group’s chair Angela Dean said in a letter to Meekings.
Pensioners have had increases in only three of the last nine years, and the value of their pensions has been eroded by almost 20 per cent because of inflation.
A growing number of the 8,000 members of the RPF are becoming extremely elderly and frail, living on small pensions and facing real hardship as inflation bites into what little they get, the group said.
Thomson Reuters is one of the few major companies in Britain to have suspended inflation rises for its final salary pensioners. Most have inflation-proofing written into their pension fund rules.
CEO Tom Glocer has expressed sympathy for the plight of Reuters pensioners. “We … look forward to reaching a solution that meets our common desire to secure pensioners’ retirements,” he wrote to the PRG last year.
The rules of the current pensions agreement, established in 2006, allow for discretionary increases only when the Fund is in surplus. That agreement should have ended in 2010 but will remain in force until a new deal is negotiated with the company, which should be by next March.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
It has contacted the chairman of the Reuters Pension Fund trustees, Greg Meekings, and requested that members should be consulted before he signs a new deal with Thomson Reuters, which he expects to do some time in the next six months.
“Our concern is that pensioners will be presented with a solution … which may not be acceptable to us," the group’s chair Angela Dean said in a letter to Meekings.
Pensioners have had increases in only three of the last nine years, and the value of their pensions has been eroded by almost 20 per cent because of inflation.
A growing number of the 8,000 members of the RPF are becoming extremely elderly and frail, living on small pensions and facing real hardship as inflation bites into what little they get, the group said.
Thomson Reuters is one of the few major companies in Britain to have suspended inflation rises for its final salary pensioners. Most have inflation-proofing written into their pension fund rules.
CEO Tom Glocer has expressed sympathy for the plight of Reuters pensioners. “We … look forward to reaching a solution that meets our common desire to secure pensioners’ retirements,” he wrote to the PRG last year.
The rules of the current pensions agreement, established in 2006, allow for discretionary increases only when the Fund is in surplus. That agreement should have ended in 2010 but will remain in force until a new deal is negotiated with the company, which should be by next March.
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
The good old days, they're now - Tom Glocer
Sunday 11 September 2011
In the first update to his blog after what he says has been a busy summer, Thomson Reuters’ chief executive ruminates on an earlier, seemingly superior period in a perfect past “when kids were better dressed and better behaved, contemporary music did not sound like screaming Banshees and adults could make it through a meal without tweeting, texting or updating their online status”.
He writes: “In our crisis-laden times, we would all do well to remember the blessings of our present Golden Age. I have been writing for some time about the dangers of the over-indebted, no growth western economies, but I believe we are in only the early years of an Information Revolution which will outpace the Industrial Revolution. The threat of terrorism and regional violence remains real; however, we have lived more than half a century without nuclear or world war. Finally, we have global warming, depleting natural resources and super bugs, but infant mortality and life expectancy have improved in most parts of the world, and we are poised for scientific breakthroughs in green energy and the fight against cancer.
“These truly are the good old days.”
● SOURCE Tom Glocer's blog
Ousted markets chief Devin Wenig joins eBay
Tuesday 06 September 2011
Wenig, 44, a close associate of chief executive Tom Glocer, headed Thomson Reuters’ markets division, which includes Reuters news agency. He also led the integration of Reuters following its 2008 takeover by Thomson.
Announcing Wenig’s hire, eBay trumpeted his business and strategic acumen. He will report to president and CEO John Donahoe, who said “Devin’s deep global operating and leadership experience, combined with his record of delivering innovation and of understanding global technology platforms and communities, makes him uniquely qualified to lead our eBay Marketplaces business”.
Postscript: Website eCommerceBytes said eBay wooed Wenig with a $13.5 million package, comprising annual salary of $750,000 with bonuses; $2.4 million in stock options; $1.8 million in restricted stock units; a target award of $1.8 million performance based restricted stock units; another award of restricted stock units valued at $6 million and participation in eBay’s incentive plan with a target bonus of 100 per cent of base salary.
Wenig, moving from the US east coast to the west, tweeted: “For sale on eBay. 3 dozen really nice ties!”
● SOURCE PaidContent | eCommerceBytes
Disappearing headlines and other faults of flawed terminal
Monday 22 August 2011
Eikon was launched last September as a fundamental shift for the company and the financial services industry it serves. It incorporates social networking features like Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging and is available on multiple computer platforms and smart phones. It was intended to be a key milestone in Thomson Reuters’ strategy to replace dozens of disparate legacy products and build an open and connected global financial community.
Customers were expected to take up Eikon quickly but with many financial businesses still struggling to recover from the global economic crisis, sales have not been spectacular. Six senior executives left the company in July and chief executive Tom Glocer took personal charge of the group’s main operating division.
Thomson Reuters hoped that updated features allowing users to comment, chat and e-mail charts, stories and other data would challenge messaging and more intuitive search tools featured in the latest Bloomberg terminal.
Within the organisation, more than 650 journalists have been using Eikon since the beginning of this year and usage data shows that between 50 and 60 per cent of them are using the new terminal on a routine basis. Users prefer it for enhanced corporate views pages, better market-monitoring tools, more powerful historical and analytical displays and a more intuitive navigation experience, said Adrian Dickson, global head of news product, in an internal memo obtained by The Baron.
“However we, like Eikon customers generally, have also asked for improved speed, performance and urgent attention to bugs and defects. The Eikon team has acknowledged the platform’s shortcomings and over the next six months will focus on performance improvements over the introduction of new content and functionality. This means that many of the gaps that we and others see in the News Experience will remain until the core stability and functionality of Eikon is perfected.”
Dickson said Eikon was much more demanding on data networks and on computer memory which can result in sluggish response times. “Eikon developers are prioritising improvements to overall speed and resilience, which in the case of News means improving the speed with which stories are retrieved as well as ensuring headlines do not randomly disappear.”
Reuters stories are delayed up to two minutes to be made available for searches, Dickson said, adding: “Therein lies the problem.” He said the Eikon development team has made the disappearing story problem the top priority among issues to be repaired in the Eikon news space. “They plan to have a fix in place by early September.”
Dickson listed other faults that had discouraged some journalists from migrating to Eikon for their regular reporting and editing tasks and said a fix was scheduled for mid-October. Other fixes will be in place in the first quarter of next year. New systems are being built that should allow editors to track what stories customers are clicking in near real-time, thus helping editors understand what stories drive traffic, at what times of the day, by which customer types and in what geographies.
Journalists in New York, Washington, Chicago and Toronto were the first to be trained on Eikon earlier this year. London is next, followed by Paris and Frankfurt. Face-to-face training will also take place in Bangalore, Hong Kong and Beijing before the end of 2011. Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney will be completed by Q1 2012. Eikon will begin to be rolled out to medium and small bureaus in the second quarter.
“There are flaws in Eikon, as the company has acknowledged, but the platform has rich tools that work in some of our key areas of coverage,” Dickson said. “As Eikon is stabilized and improved, journalists will become more confident using its multiple features which should help them produce more original and insightful stories…
“The Eikon platform is critical to our future and all journalists need to understand how news is being displayed on the new terminal. Therefore we are planning to install at least one stand-alone Eikon terminal in every bureau throughout the course of 2012.”
● SOURCE Reuters
Thomson Reuters to expand new data system
Monday 15 August 2011
Thomson Reuters is to add foreign exchange data and trading services to Elektron, its flagship high-speed market data system launched last year.
The group hopes the addition can provide a bright spot in its markets division, which accounts for the majority of group revenues but has been performing below expectations, the Financial Times reported. Tom Glocer, chief executive, took over direct management of markets last month in a shake-up that involved the departure of the division’s chief executive, Devin Wenig, and other senior managers.
“Banks need to find ways to cut costs but can’t ignore the technology infrastructure,” Jon Robson, president, enterprise solutions, told the FT. He added that Elektron would look to do more cross-asset class trading. “It’s primarily equities services at the moment, but it will do over-the-counter trading too,” he said.
● SOURCE Financial Times
The group hopes the addition can provide a bright spot in its markets division, which accounts for the majority of group revenues but has been performing below expectations, the Financial Times reported. Tom Glocer, chief executive, took over direct management of markets last month in a shake-up that involved the departure of the division’s chief executive, Devin Wenig, and other senior managers.
“Banks need to find ways to cut costs but can’t ignore the technology infrastructure,” Jon Robson, president, enterprise solutions, told the FT. He added that Elektron would look to do more cross-asset class trading. “It’s primarily equities services at the moment, but it will do over-the-counter trading too,” he said.
● SOURCE Financial Times
Markets drag on 'healthy' Thomson Reuters results
Thursday 28 July 2011
Thomson Reuters reported sluggish growth in its markets division as the company struggles to accelerate adoption of a new flagship desktop for financial professionals.
Second-quarter results released on Thursday followed a management shakeout that resulted in the sudden departure of the ailing division’s chief Devin Wenig and five other high-level executives last week.
Chief executive Tom Glocer assumed direct responsibility for a turnaround in the division, which competes with Bloomberg, Dow Jones and FactSet Research. Division revenue excluding the impact of currency changes rose one per cent from a year earlier, slowing from the first quarter's gain of two per cent.
Overall revenue and earnings per share were within ranges the company announced last week when it became clear that improving the performance of the markets division was a priority for the board and controlling shareholder, Canada's Thomson family.
Glocer called the results “healthy” but noted this was due to strong growth in the professional division serving legal, accounting and other professionals. That unit’s revenue rose eight per cent excluding the impact of exchange rate changes.
“Nonetheless, revenue growth in our markets division is below our expectations, and I have decided to accelerate the transformation in markets,” Glocer said in a statement. “I am confident that these changes will result in improved performance.”
Total revenue excluding divestitures was $3.2 billion, up four per cent before currency adjustments and slightly ahead of the average analyst forecast. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 51 cents from 41 cents.
Many financial clients are still recovering from the global economic crisis, with job cuts and pullbacks in spending. This is hindering sales of Eikon, a new desktop platform which is aimed at pulling together dozens of disparate legacy products.
The company said it had sold more than 28,000 Eikon desktops since the launch last September. About 3,500 are to new users, meaning that only about 24,500 of the company's roughly 500,000 financial markets users have migrated to the new product.
Reuters’ own coverage of the results said the organisational changes have thrown into question how quickly Thomson Reuters can fast-track growth in markets, which accounted for 59 per cent of the company's revenue in the second quarter.
Glocer is preparing a plan to boost the division’s revenue growth rate and plans to present it to the board in the next two months, Reuters said. “He will have about a year to make it work, according to several people familiar with the board’s thinking.”
The markets shakeup dominated Glocer’s earnings call with analysts who wanted to know how and when things will turn around. He pleaded for some patience in fixing the division and discussed a 30-day plan, which involves reorganising the roles of its sales staff, and a 90-day plan, which entails repositioning the product line. On top of that, there is a year-plus plan that calls for developing a broader strategy around Eikon and Elektron, an ultra-high speed data distribution network.
“Any time you do this level of transformation, people need time to get their sea legs,” Glocer said. “So, in the short term, we expect some disruption. At the same time, we expect a lot of excitement on people moving forward with the new strategy in place.”
Asked if his direct management of markets is an interim measure or a permanent one, he said, “Permanent is a long time. I’m the ninth chief executive of Reuters in 160 years.”
Thomson Reuters shares, which have tumbled in recent days, rose by 3.5 per cent after today’s results.
● SOURCE Reuters | PaidContent
Second-quarter results released on Thursday followed a management shakeout that resulted in the sudden departure of the ailing division’s chief Devin Wenig and five other high-level executives last week.
Chief executive Tom Glocer assumed direct responsibility for a turnaround in the division, which competes with Bloomberg, Dow Jones and FactSet Research. Division revenue excluding the impact of currency changes rose one per cent from a year earlier, slowing from the first quarter's gain of two per cent.
Overall revenue and earnings per share were within ranges the company announced last week when it became clear that improving the performance of the markets division was a priority for the board and controlling shareholder, Canada's Thomson family.
Glocer called the results “healthy” but noted this was due to strong growth in the professional division serving legal, accounting and other professionals. That unit’s revenue rose eight per cent excluding the impact of exchange rate changes.
“Nonetheless, revenue growth in our markets division is below our expectations, and I have decided to accelerate the transformation in markets,” Glocer said in a statement. “I am confident that these changes will result in improved performance.”
Total revenue excluding divestitures was $3.2 billion, up four per cent before currency adjustments and slightly ahead of the average analyst forecast. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 51 cents from 41 cents.
Many financial clients are still recovering from the global economic crisis, with job cuts and pullbacks in spending. This is hindering sales of Eikon, a new desktop platform which is aimed at pulling together dozens of disparate legacy products.
The company said it had sold more than 28,000 Eikon desktops since the launch last September. About 3,500 are to new users, meaning that only about 24,500 of the company's roughly 500,000 financial markets users have migrated to the new product.
Reuters’ own coverage of the results said the organisational changes have thrown into question how quickly Thomson Reuters can fast-track growth in markets, which accounted for 59 per cent of the company's revenue in the second quarter.
Glocer is preparing a plan to boost the division’s revenue growth rate and plans to present it to the board in the next two months, Reuters said. “He will have about a year to make it work, according to several people familiar with the board’s thinking.”
The markets shakeup dominated Glocer’s earnings call with analysts who wanted to know how and when things will turn around. He pleaded for some patience in fixing the division and discussed a 30-day plan, which involves reorganising the roles of its sales staff, and a 90-day plan, which entails repositioning the product line. On top of that, there is a year-plus plan that calls for developing a broader strategy around Eikon and Elektron, an ultra-high speed data distribution network.
“Any time you do this level of transformation, people need time to get their sea legs,” Glocer said. “So, in the short term, we expect some disruption. At the same time, we expect a lot of excitement on people moving forward with the new strategy in place.”
Asked if his direct management of markets is an interim measure or a permanent one, he said, “Permanent is a long time. I’m the ninth chief executive of Reuters in 160 years.”
Thomson Reuters shares, which have tumbled in recent days, rose by 3.5 per cent after today’s results.
● SOURCE Reuters | PaidContent
Thomson family behind forced TR restructure - WSJ
Tuesday 26 July 2011
The Thomson family, impatient with Thomson Reuters’ performance, pressed for a senior management shake-up that saw the sudden departure of six top executives last week, putting pressure on CEO Tom Glocer to pull off a turnaround, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
With Glocer now directly overseeing the markets division, which contributes almost 60 per cent of group revenue, the newspaper said the chief executive is in the line of fire if results do not improve. Markets includes Reuters news agency.
The Journal quoted people familiar with the company saying it is not unusual for officials of Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s investment company, to have a say in setting strategy at Thomson Reuters, where they hold a 55 per cent controlling interest.
But the family’s move to flex its muscle spotlights the uncertain payoff from the $17 billion deal that united Thomson Corp and Reuters Group, it said. Since the day after the merger closed in April 2008, the combined company’s US-listed shares have risen just 0.7 per cent.
“Thomson Reuters is scheduled to release second-quarter financial results on Thursday, which will be a crucial day for Mr Glocer,” the Journal said. Investors have said publicly that they are looking for an explanation of Devin Wenig’s departure as chief executive of the markets division and more details about the division’s results. Wenig was a close associate of Glocer, who brought him into Reuters 17 years ago. The Journal said many investors and company executives had considered him to be a possible successor. Both men were former US mergers and acquisitions lawyers.
The Journal said: “People familiar with the company said Woodbridge has methodically set financial goals for the Thomson family’s businesses, and then expects executives to meet them, or face losing their jobs.”
Quoting informed sources, the Journal said that after discussions between Thomson Reuters management in New York and Woodbridge officials in Toronto, Wenig declined to go along with a broad overhaul.
“It was left to Mr Glocer to push through a more drastic proposal that consolidated the division, and wiped away layers of what the company called duplicative executive positions.”
The Journal said that, partly due to the weak economic recovery, Thomson Reuters and Glocer have been grappling with slow sales of products for investment banks, fund managers and other finance professionals.
“But the investment industry also has been slow to embrace Eikon, a revamped financial-data product that Thomson Reuters spent heavily on to develop.”
Eikon was launched last September as a next-generation desktop product for financial professionals incorporating social media features like Twitter. It brings together dozens of Reuters and Thomson legacy products. The company said at the launch that Eikon was intended to win customers from Bloomberg and other competitors. Clients were expected to take it up quickly, but that has not happened. The company has migrated only about 24,500 of the roughly 500,000 users of its legacy products to Eikon and it has brought in only 3,500 new users.
Largely because of spending to develop the new product as well as other new offerings, Thomson Reuters posted a seven per cent decline in underlying operating profit last year. The payoff was supposed to come this year, company executives told the Journal.
● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal
With Glocer now directly overseeing the markets division, which contributes almost 60 per cent of group revenue, the newspaper said the chief executive is in the line of fire if results do not improve. Markets includes Reuters news agency.
The Journal quoted people familiar with the company saying it is not unusual for officials of Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s investment company, to have a say in setting strategy at Thomson Reuters, where they hold a 55 per cent controlling interest.
But the family’s move to flex its muscle spotlights the uncertain payoff from the $17 billion deal that united Thomson Corp and Reuters Group, it said. Since the day after the merger closed in April 2008, the combined company’s US-listed shares have risen just 0.7 per cent.
“Thomson Reuters is scheduled to release second-quarter financial results on Thursday, which will be a crucial day for Mr Glocer,” the Journal said. Investors have said publicly that they are looking for an explanation of Devin Wenig’s departure as chief executive of the markets division and more details about the division’s results. Wenig was a close associate of Glocer, who brought him into Reuters 17 years ago. The Journal said many investors and company executives had considered him to be a possible successor. Both men were former US mergers and acquisitions lawyers.
The Journal said: “People familiar with the company said Woodbridge has methodically set financial goals for the Thomson family’s businesses, and then expects executives to meet them, or face losing their jobs.”
Quoting informed sources, the Journal said that after discussions between Thomson Reuters management in New York and Woodbridge officials in Toronto, Wenig declined to go along with a broad overhaul.
“It was left to Mr Glocer to push through a more drastic proposal that consolidated the division, and wiped away layers of what the company called duplicative executive positions.”
The Journal said that, partly due to the weak economic recovery, Thomson Reuters and Glocer have been grappling with slow sales of products for investment banks, fund managers and other finance professionals.
“But the investment industry also has been slow to embrace Eikon, a revamped financial-data product that Thomson Reuters spent heavily on to develop.”
Eikon was launched last September as a next-generation desktop product for financial professionals incorporating social media features like Twitter. It brings together dozens of Reuters and Thomson legacy products. The company said at the launch that Eikon was intended to win customers from Bloomberg and other competitors. Clients were expected to take it up quickly, but that has not happened. The company has migrated only about 24,500 of the roughly 500,000 users of its legacy products to Eikon and it has brought in only 3,500 new users.
Largely because of spending to develop the new product as well as other new offerings, Thomson Reuters posted a seven per cent decline in underlying operating profit last year. The payoff was supposed to come this year, company executives told the Journal.
● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal
Major Thomson Reuters shake-up claims more scalps
Friday 22 July 2011
A major reorganisation at Thomson Reuters saw the sudden departure of five more senior executives on Friday.
Chris Ahearn, president of media, is leaving the company, along with four others in the markets division which includes Reuters news agency.
Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets, left yesterday in a re-organisation that the company said aimed to accelerate growth in its financial data business. Second quarter growth in markets has been “somewhat slower than anticipated”, the company said on Thursday. The shares were down more than three per cent in New York on Friday.
Susan Taylor Martin, president of global investment focus accounts, replaces Ahearn as head of media. Tom Glocer, chief executive of the entire group, takes on oversight of markets, assuming Wenig’s role as well as running the whole business. He said: “These changes are intended to accelerate growth as we flatten our organisation to operate as an integrated company and unleash cross-company capabilities and operating synergies.”
Both Ahearn, a former investment banker, and Wenig were executives of Reuters when the company was taken over by Thomson in 2008.
The Financial Times said Wenig’s exit was seen as a sign that Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s holding company, was seeking faster change after 12 months in which its shares have fallen by 9.9 per cent. The Thomsons, Canada’s richest family, own 55 per cent of the business. The FT said the Thomson Reuters board has been looking for new growth strategies as it came to the end of a three-year integration period following the takeover in which cost savings had driven results.
Sources in New York said the Thomsons had decided to give the integration three years to bed down and then act if they thought performance was falling short of expectations.
Glocer said he will manage the financial services business of markets through two closely aligned operating units: Financial Professionals & Marketplaces and Enterprise Solutions. The Financial Professionals & Marketplaces unit will come together over the coming months through the combination of the present Sales & Trading (S&T) and Investment & Advisory (I&A) units. This unit will be led by Shanker Ramamurthy, who joined in May from IBM where he was a general manager and currently runs S&T.
“To give Shanker time to ramp up, I&A will report on an interim basis to Bob Daleo, CFO of Thomson Reuters, who will transition the business to Shanker in a careful and open process,” Glocer said. “Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler will also report directly to me, reflecting the cross-company role of Editorial.”
Glocer will chair a new markets executive committee.
“This transformation is about driving growth, unleashing cross-company capabilities and making it easier to get things done,” he said. “Importantly, it’s also about accountability and transparency. As we work to create a performance-driven culture, let’s make it a culture where results speak the loudest and collaboration is the norm.”
The other senior executives leaving are investment and advisory president Eric Frank, markets global sales and customer service managing director Joerg Floeck, markets chief marketing officer Lee Ann Daly and markets global head of human resources John Reid-Dodick.
Glocer said he was not planning any further changes of this scale at corporate level or in the professional division, where a similar streamlining effort was carried out earlier this year.
● SOURCE Reuters
Chris Ahearn, president of media, is leaving the company, along with four others in the markets division which includes Reuters news agency.
Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets, left yesterday in a re-organisation that the company said aimed to accelerate growth in its financial data business. Second quarter growth in markets has been “somewhat slower than anticipated”, the company said on Thursday. The shares were down more than three per cent in New York on Friday.
Susan Taylor Martin, president of global investment focus accounts, replaces Ahearn as head of media. Tom Glocer, chief executive of the entire group, takes on oversight of markets, assuming Wenig’s role as well as running the whole business. He said: “These changes are intended to accelerate growth as we flatten our organisation to operate as an integrated company and unleash cross-company capabilities and operating synergies.”
Both Ahearn, a former investment banker, and Wenig were executives of Reuters when the company was taken over by Thomson in 2008.
The Financial Times said Wenig’s exit was seen as a sign that Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s holding company, was seeking faster change after 12 months in which its shares have fallen by 9.9 per cent. The Thomsons, Canada’s richest family, own 55 per cent of the business. The FT said the Thomson Reuters board has been looking for new growth strategies as it came to the end of a three-year integration period following the takeover in which cost savings had driven results.
Sources in New York said the Thomsons had decided to give the integration three years to bed down and then act if they thought performance was falling short of expectations.
Glocer said he will manage the financial services business of markets through two closely aligned operating units: Financial Professionals & Marketplaces and Enterprise Solutions. The Financial Professionals & Marketplaces unit will come together over the coming months through the combination of the present Sales & Trading (S&T) and Investment & Advisory (I&A) units. This unit will be led by Shanker Ramamurthy, who joined in May from IBM where he was a general manager and currently runs S&T.
“To give Shanker time to ramp up, I&A will report on an interim basis to Bob Daleo, CFO of Thomson Reuters, who will transition the business to Shanker in a careful and open process,” Glocer said. “Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler will also report directly to me, reflecting the cross-company role of Editorial.”
Glocer will chair a new markets executive committee.
“This transformation is about driving growth, unleashing cross-company capabilities and making it easier to get things done,” he said. “Importantly, it’s also about accountability and transparency. As we work to create a performance-driven culture, let’s make it a culture where results speak the loudest and collaboration is the norm.”
The other senior executives leaving are investment and advisory president Eric Frank, markets global sales and customer service managing director Joerg Floeck, markets chief marketing officer Lee Ann Daly and markets global head of human resources John Reid-Dodick.
Glocer said he was not planning any further changes of this scale at corporate level or in the professional division, where a similar streamlining effort was carried out earlier this year.
● SOURCE Reuters
Thomson Reuters streamlines markets division, Devin Wenig bows out
Thursday 21 July 2011
Chief executive Tom Glocer will assume responsibility for the division.
The company reaffirmed its 2011 outlook and said it expects to report second-quarter ongoing revenues of between $3.1 billion and $3.2 billion, up four per cent. Wall Street is looking for $3.15 billion in the Q2 results due to be announced on 28 July.
The markets division, which serves the financial services industry, will be simplified to three business units from four to help accelerate growth, the company said. The sales and trading, and investment and advisory units will be combined.
The company gave no reason for Wenig’s departure beyond saying it was “coincident with these organizational changes”. He joined Reuters in 1993. Before becoming chief executive of markets he was chief operating officer of Reuters prior to the 2008 takeover by Thomson.
Glocer said the changes were aimed at accelerating growth “as we flatten our organization to operate as an integrated company and unleash cross-company capabilities and operating synergies”.
The Financial Times said Wenig’s unexpected exit was seen by industry members as a sign that Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s holding company that manages its 55 per cent ownership of Thomson Reuters, was seeking faster change after 12 months in which the group’s shares have fallen by 9.9 per cent.
● SOURCE Reuters | Press Release | Financial Times
Improving the signal-to-noise ratio, by Tom Glocer
Wednesday 13 July 2011
In a world awash with data, the challenge for Thomson Reuters and other providers is to create an efficient path to information that helps businesses to do commerce, says CEO Tom Glocer.
A huge trove of information is now free and this has disrupted the media landscape like nothing else in the industry’s history, he writes in Brunswick Review published by international corporate communications group Brunswick.
The primary competitive advantage media companies had long held was their iron-clad grip over both the content they created and its means of distribution, Glocer says. That, coupled with the huge cost of entry into the business for would-be competitors, ensured a very powerful business model for newspaper publishers, TV networks, record labels, and movie studios.
“But information alone isn’t enough, especially given how much of it there is these days,” Glocer writes. “Equally important is ensuring that the information we provide is valuable in terms of giving our customers the ability to find the information they require in a sea of data.”
Describing the Reuters news wire as one of the oldest media outlets in the world, Glocer says: “I firmly believe that this flood of information plays to Thomson Reuters singular competitive advantage as an information provider. Our entire business model and strategy for growth rests on a basic assumption that relevant, actionable information and the tools to analyze and act upon it have value. We have found that professionals all over the world are willing to pay for information that they absolutely require to do their jobs and they want exactly that information, not more.”
He adds: “In a world awash with data, the problem that professionals face is not, therefore, an overabundance of information, it is the lack of good filters. In an increasingly noisy world, Thomson Reuters improves the signal-to-noise ratio for professionals around the globe. We enable our customers to detect the often faint signals hidden in big noisy data sets that help them fulfill their goals. That is information worth paying for.”
● SOURCE Brunswick Review
A huge trove of information is now free and this has disrupted the media landscape like nothing else in the industry’s history, he writes in Brunswick Review published by international corporate communications group Brunswick.
The primary competitive advantage media companies had long held was their iron-clad grip over both the content they created and its means of distribution, Glocer says. That, coupled with the huge cost of entry into the business for would-be competitors, ensured a very powerful business model for newspaper publishers, TV networks, record labels, and movie studios.
“But information alone isn’t enough, especially given how much of it there is these days,” Glocer writes. “Equally important is ensuring that the information we provide is valuable in terms of giving our customers the ability to find the information they require in a sea of data.”
Describing the Reuters news wire as one of the oldest media outlets in the world, Glocer says: “I firmly believe that this flood of information plays to Thomson Reuters singular competitive advantage as an information provider. Our entire business model and strategy for growth rests on a basic assumption that relevant, actionable information and the tools to analyze and act upon it have value. We have found that professionals all over the world are willing to pay for information that they absolutely require to do their jobs and they want exactly that information, not more.”
He adds: “In a world awash with data, the problem that professionals face is not, therefore, an overabundance of information, it is the lack of good filters. In an increasingly noisy world, Thomson Reuters improves the signal-to-noise ratio for professionals around the globe. We enable our customers to detect the often faint signals hidden in big noisy data sets that help them fulfill their goals. That is information worth paying for.”
● SOURCE Brunswick Review
Revenue up, Thomson Reuters plans sales to raise cash for core business
Thursday 28 April 2011
Thomson Reuters' revenue growth accelerated in the first quarter as it reaped benefits from heavy spending on new products, and the company plans to sell two more businesses to fund further investment.
It expects to raise about $1 billion from the sale of its enterprise risk management and investment accounting software businesses, the company said on Thursday, along with previously announced sales of its BARBRI legal courses product and Scandinavian legal and tax and accounting units.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said the funds would be reinvested in the core business.
Announcing Q1 2011 financial results, the company said revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.2 billion, up five per cent before currency adjustments, quickening from four per cent growth in the previous quarter.
“I am pleased with our solid results for the first quarter,” Glocer said in a statement accompanying the results. “2011 is playing out much as we anticipated, with accelerating revenue growth which will drive expanded margins and higher cash flow as the year progresses... Based on our good start to the year, we are confident that we will deliver on our expectations for the full year.”
The company reaffirmed its 2011 forecast for mid-single digit revenue growth. It also reiterated that the operating profit margin is expected to increase by at least 100 basis points this year.
First quarter underlying profit increased one per cent, with a corresponding margin of 17.2 per cent. Excluding a $39 million one-time charge, the underlying profit margin was 18.4 per cent compared with 18 per cent in the same period last year.
Adjusted earnings per share, including the one-time charge, rose to 39 cents from 36 cents in the same quarter last year.
Professional division revenue increased eight per cent to $1.38 billion, driven by a 10 per cent increase in legal revenue. The WestlawNext legal database has been sold to more than 18,500 customers since its launch in February 2010, representing 34 per cent of Westlaw's revenue base, the company said.
In the markets division, which competes with Bloomberg and Dow Jones, revenue rose two per cent to $1.87 billion.
● SOURCE Reuters
It expects to raise about $1 billion from the sale of its enterprise risk management and investment accounting software businesses, the company said on Thursday, along with previously announced sales of its BARBRI legal courses product and Scandinavian legal and tax and accounting units.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said the funds would be reinvested in the core business.
Announcing Q1 2011 financial results, the company said revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.2 billion, up five per cent before currency adjustments, quickening from four per cent growth in the previous quarter.
“I am pleased with our solid results for the first quarter,” Glocer said in a statement accompanying the results. “2011 is playing out much as we anticipated, with accelerating revenue growth which will drive expanded margins and higher cash flow as the year progresses... Based on our good start to the year, we are confident that we will deliver on our expectations for the full year.”
The company reaffirmed its 2011 forecast for mid-single digit revenue growth. It also reiterated that the operating profit margin is expected to increase by at least 100 basis points this year.
First quarter underlying profit increased one per cent, with a corresponding margin of 17.2 per cent. Excluding a $39 million one-time charge, the underlying profit margin was 18.4 per cent compared with 18 per cent in the same period last year.
Adjusted earnings per share, including the one-time charge, rose to 39 cents from 36 cents in the same quarter last year.
Professional division revenue increased eight per cent to $1.38 billion, driven by a 10 per cent increase in legal revenue. The WestlawNext legal database has been sold to more than 18,500 customers since its launch in February 2010, representing 34 per cent of Westlaw's revenue base, the company said.
In the markets division, which competes with Bloomberg and Dow Jones, revenue rose two per cent to $1.87 billion.
● SOURCE Reuters
Integration phase over, Thomson Reuters built to last - Tom Glocer
Tuesday 26 April 2011
But he is not ready to pack up his New York Times Square office quite yet, the Financial Times said in a report. “I promised the Thomsons I would stay to complete a job. My reckoning is that job isn’t completed, although we laid a really good foundation,” he said.
Glocer, who became CEO of the combined group on completion of the takeover three years ago, said: “I think we have what may become the defining corporate structure of the best institutions for the next 20 years.” He hailed the continuity provided by a large family stake – Canada’s Thomson family holds 55 per cent of the group’s shares through its investment company Woodbridge – and a public quote in New York and Toronto that keeps management on its toes. “Without the discipline of the market you can become so long-term, it’s perpetual mañana,” he said.
Investors are asking what comes next, the FT said. The group originally promised annualised savings worth $750 million but has steadily raised that forecast to $1.7 billion by the end of 2011. It has spent almost $500 million each year to achieve those savings, and some analysts worry that the group is returning to a pattern from Reuters’ history of repeated waves of investment and restructuring, but Glocer notes that integration expenses will fall to just $200 million in 2011.
Within months of the takeover deal closing in April 2008, a whirlwind blew through the financial hubs on which the group’s $7.5 billion markets division depends, emptying many traders’ desks from Wall Street to the City of London, the FT said.
The damage to Thomson Reuters was limited, however, by cost savings that were larger than expected, big product launches, the $5.4 billion professional information division that balances out the markets business and the group’s decision to abandon a listing in London, where investors were more bearish on its markets division.
Glocer is an acquisitions lawyer who has studied the history of failed deals, concluding that cultural rifts were usually their downfall, the FT said. He decided from the start not to sugar-coat the message to his Reuters colleagues: this was not a merger; Thomson was taking them over.
“When I hear the words ‘merger of equals’, ‘best of both’ or ‘two plus two equals five’ I think that’s a big short,” he says: “It’s a Thomson team complemented where necessary by people with a Reuters skillset.”
The group spent $900 million on 30-40 small acquisitions last year, but Glocer says his focus is on reviving top line growth largely organically, improving margins and converting 100 per cent of operating income into free cash flow.
“The longer-term goals have always been to deliver mid to high single-digit [revenue] growth, operating margins in the mid-20s and free cash flow somewhere north of $3bn. That’s work that’s still to be done and it won’t all be done this year either,” he says. Some of that growth will come from using Reuters’ international presence to expand the Thomson legal, tax, accounting, scientific and regulatory businesses from Latin America to the Gulf.
In a sidebar, the FT said grinding pressure on advertising and circulation revenues at US newspapers and magazines was turning the newswires owned by Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg from training grounds for young reporters into refuges for senior print journalists.
Referring to last week’s editorial restructuring in which four experienced recruits who had held senior positions at The Wall Street Journal, Time, Dow Jones and the South China Morning Post joined the company, it quoted editor-in-chief Stephen Adler as saying steady revenue from subscriptions to data services was a selling point.
Growing competition for instant news has forced wires to expand from their just-the-facts origins, and Adler said his restructuring would emphasise explanation and insight, the FT added.
● SOURCE Financial Times | VIDEO
● CLICK to view the FT video - The Thomson Reuters merger: Three years on
Tom Glocer: We have a clear sense of mission
Thursday 07 April 2011
“We could do many things, but we have a clear sense of mission. Our core mission is to take content and software, and provide it to professionals as part of their work, to allow them to make better decisions faster,” the chief executive said in an interview.
The merger completed on 17 April 2008 went remarkably well “because we worked so hard at it”, he told the Dubai daily Gulf News. “Most people wrongly spend more time on the nuts and bolts of the physical aspects. But I think the long term determinants of success are the softer cultural issues on which I spent most of my time. As a result the company really feels like one company.
“One of the reasons that the merger has gone well is because from the very beginning I was very clear that this was not a merger of equals,” Glocer said. It was very clear that Thomson acquired Reuters and the combined company was named Thomson Reuters.
“The constituent parts of the whole were Thomson two thirds, Reuters one third.
“This was only slightly confusing because I personally came from Reuters, where I was CEO, before I became CEO of the merged group. And we reversed Thomson Financial News into Reuters, so it looked as if Reuters acquired the Thomson Financial business. But for the group, the whole thing was very clear: it was an acquisition of Reuters by Thomson Corp.”
Glocer added: “Providing news is integral to all of our services, even if the percentage of our revenues that come from the traditional Reuters news agency is well under five per cent of the total.”
He said Thomson Reuters would expand the number of vertical industries in which it participates. For example, a new business area, which also illustrates Thomson Reuters’ global approach, is Point Carbon, a carbon trading and energy service launched last year. “We now have the leading content and software for capturing both carbon pricing and other important factors, for whatever carbon trading regime is used, whether it is cap and trade or any other.”
● SOURCE Gulf News
Internet a basic human right - Tom Glocer
Thursday 17 March 2011
Internet access is a basic human right and government attempts to stop the free flow of information will fail dramatically, CEO Tom Glocer told a Middle East media conference.
Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Glocer said: “I believe Internet access is a basic human right. Different governments have tried to stop the free flow of information, but eventually those tactics will fail in a dramatic and revolutionary way.”
During the revolution in Egypt the authorities tried to stop Reuters from broadcasting, the chief executive said, but the company still managed to put out 117 hours by being inventive in the way they produced and distributed content.
“We don’t try to legislate for what others should do, but when we publish news we do it as straight as humanly possible. But humans are biased so we rigorously edit to filter that out.”
On the role of global news organisations, Glocer said that there was nothing wrong with campaigning media as long as people have a choice of sources. “I have a problem when I see opinions creeping deeply into what purports to be news,” he said.
He said that while technology has allowed us to look over our own borders and realise “we are not so different from each other” he hopes cultural differences will still be reflected in regional media.
● SOURCE Gulf News
Postscript: On 23 March Tom Glocer posted the following on his blog:
Internet Freedom Finds a Fertile Crescent
I participated in a fireside chat last week at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in which I was interviewed by the talented Lebanese journalist, Raghida Dergham. Raghida writes a well-read weekly column in Al Hayat and is a close follower of political developments across the Arab world. Thus, I should have been on notice that our scheduled discussion on the future of media could not ignore the remarkable changes taking place across the region.
During a wide-ranging discussion of the future of media (not an unfamiliar theme to the readers of this blog) and the role of social media in the popular uprisings sweeping the region, I stated that I believed that access to the internet was now a basic human right. By this, I did not mean to imply that governments should not regulate noxious material such as child pornography or hate speech on the internet, nor that all societies regardless of their current state of development needed to provide free universal internet access immediately, but simply that citizens would not stand to be deprived of the basic information and connectivity they needed to function as participating members of modern societies. Thus, President Mubarak’s clumsy attempt to shutdown the internet in Egypt only fanned the flames of the popular rebellion.
I am not so naiive or optimistic to think that the online tools provided by Twitter and Facebook, can, in the short-run, protect individuals from the guns and tear gas of a totalitarian state. However, over time, suppression of the internet will undermine the legitimacy of any government and sow the seeds of its downfall. I also have the 160-year history of Reuters News as a guide. There have been brief periods when governments have sought to punish the company for adhering to our Trust Principles and reporting the truth. However, over the longer-term, by sticking to our convictions we have earned the trust of the societies in which we operate. So too the internet will triumph. Not thanks to a single publisher, no matter how respected, but via the loud and competing voices of a multitude of self-publishers.
Fighting the tide of history is always a losing bet.
Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Glocer said: “I believe Internet access is a basic human right. Different governments have tried to stop the free flow of information, but eventually those tactics will fail in a dramatic and revolutionary way.”
During the revolution in Egypt the authorities tried to stop Reuters from broadcasting, the chief executive said, but the company still managed to put out 117 hours by being inventive in the way they produced and distributed content.
“We don’t try to legislate for what others should do, but when we publish news we do it as straight as humanly possible. But humans are biased so we rigorously edit to filter that out.”
On the role of global news organisations, Glocer said that there was nothing wrong with campaigning media as long as people have a choice of sources. “I have a problem when I see opinions creeping deeply into what purports to be news,” he said.
He said that while technology has allowed us to look over our own borders and realise “we are not so different from each other” he hopes cultural differences will still be reflected in regional media.
● SOURCE Gulf News
Postscript: On 23 March Tom Glocer posted the following on his blog:
Internet Freedom Finds a Fertile Crescent
I participated in a fireside chat last week at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in which I was interviewed by the talented Lebanese journalist, Raghida Dergham. Raghida writes a well-read weekly column in Al Hayat and is a close follower of political developments across the Arab world. Thus, I should have been on notice that our scheduled discussion on the future of media could not ignore the remarkable changes taking place across the region.
During a wide-ranging discussion of the future of media (not an unfamiliar theme to the readers of this blog) and the role of social media in the popular uprisings sweeping the region, I stated that I believed that access to the internet was now a basic human right. By this, I did not mean to imply that governments should not regulate noxious material such as child pornography or hate speech on the internet, nor that all societies regardless of their current state of development needed to provide free universal internet access immediately, but simply that citizens would not stand to be deprived of the basic information and connectivity they needed to function as participating members of modern societies. Thus, President Mubarak’s clumsy attempt to shutdown the internet in Egypt only fanned the flames of the popular rebellion.
I am not so naiive or optimistic to think that the online tools provided by Twitter and Facebook, can, in the short-run, protect individuals from the guns and tear gas of a totalitarian state. However, over time, suppression of the internet will undermine the legitimacy of any government and sow the seeds of its downfall. I also have the 160-year history of Reuters News as a guide. There have been brief periods when governments have sought to punish the company for adhering to our Trust Principles and reporting the truth. However, over the longer-term, by sticking to our convictions we have earned the trust of the societies in which we operate. So too the internet will triumph. Not thanks to a single publisher, no matter how respected, but via the loud and competing voices of a multitude of self-publishers.
Fighting the tide of history is always a losing bet.
Earnings up, Thomson Reuters forecasts higher revenue this year
Thursday 10 February 2011
The improved outlook reflects signs that the group’s financial and professional customers are recovering from the recession. A year ago Thomson Reuters was under pressure as those customers cut spending and employees.
“A shock like the world went through leaves a caution that hangs around for a while,” chief executive Tom Glocer said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. “But there’s no question that the conditions themselves are getting better in many of our markets.”
The improving economy and new services helped lift Q4 earnings to $225 million, or 27 cents per share, up from $182 million, or 21 cents per share, a year earlier. Q4 adjusted earnings per share of 43 cents missed the average analyst forecast of 46 cents.
Revenue climbed three per cent to $3.46 billion. Analysts expected $3.44 billion. Full-year earnings came to $933 million, or $1.08 per share, up from $867 million, or $1.01 per share, in 2009. Revenue ended essentially flat at $13 billion.
Highlighting the brighter outlook, the company raised its annual dividend by seven per cent to $1.24 per share.
Thomson Reuters has invested heavily in new products such as financial desktop Eikon, online video news service Reuters Insider and legal database service WestlawNext. Glocer said these investments would pay off in 2011. “With this period of heavy investment now successfully completed and our markets improving, we have set our sights on accelerating growth and delivering strong returns on our investments,” he said in a statement. “We have targeted mid-single-digit revenue growth for 2011, accompanied by strongly expanding margins and increasing levels of free cash flow.”
Thomson Reuters’ New York-listed shares have risen 11.6 per cent so far in 2011. The Toronto-listed shares are up 10.8 per cent.
In an internal message, Glocer told staff: “I am proud of what we accomplished, but very clear that much remains to be done, and mindful that we need to accelerate the pace of change.”
Growth and efficiency would remain priorities for 2011 “and we will aspire to excellence in all that we do. We have the ability, and therefore the mandate, to go from good – or in some cases maybe just OK – to truly excellent in areas such as:
● “Establishing a winning performance culture, and strengthening talent and engagement across the company;
● “Becoming hands-down the world’s best news organisation; the organisational changes I wrote about earlier this week will advance this goal;
● “Delivering customer service that truly delights our customers; customers are the ultimate judges of a company’s excellence;
● “Delivering the most innovative platform-based products which embody deep customer insight; and
● “Ensuring that our capital and talent is focused on the highest-value opportunities.
“Our commitment to excellence should also extend to our respect for our colleagues, communities and the environment. If each of the 55,000 of us achieves his or her own personal excellence, and we align our efforts, we will be unstoppable.
“We have turned the corner on growth. Now let’s reach for excellence.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | Reuters
Thomson Reuters names new editor-in-chief
Monday 07 February 2011
He is Stephen Adler, pictured, who joined the company a year ago from BusinessWeek where he was editor-in-chief. He left the magazine after it was purchased by Bloomberg. Adler replaces David Schlesinger who held the post since January 2007 and now returns to China to oversee group strategy in that country as chairman of Thomson Reuters China. The moves are effective immediately.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said the appointment of a relative outsider to the company’s top editorial job showed “not everything has to be invented here”.
Adler, 56, a former investigative editor at The Wall Street Journal and one-time editor of The American Lawyer, joined Thomson Reuters in January 2010 to set up dedicated news services for its legal, tax and accounting and healthcare and science divisions, fulfilling a goal set when Thomson acquired Reuters in April 2008. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School.
Glocer said Thomson Reuters’ fledgling professional news initiative, which employs 12 journalists, is “ready to be integrated into mother Reuters”.
Pointing to AOL’s acquisition of Huffington Post and The Daily Beast’s Newsweek deal, he added: “If you look at the outside world, there’s a need to accelerate change even in venerable and well-respected news organisations.”
“Journalistic excellence will continue to be our hallmark,” Adler said in a statement, “and our goal is to become a must-read among global professionals. To that end, we will continue to develop our extraordinary internal talent as well as hiring strategically from outside.”
He told the Financial Times his appointment to the new role of executive vice president of news for Thomson Reuters, reporting to the heads of both the markets and professional divisions, signalled a decision “to view Reuters News as an asset for the whole company”.
“There is going to be one news organisation to serve all the businesses,” Adler said. “The goal is to have a united news organisation.”
Glocer said: “My biggest hope and goal for him is we maximise the amount of time and resource that truly goes to journalistic excellence. Reuters developed its reputation when no one could do what we did. We should do that again.”
In a message to staff, Glocer said Adler would be a member of the executive committee and would report jointly to Devin Wenig and James Smith, chief executives of Thomson Reuters’ markets and professional divisions respectively. “This reporting relationship will help ensure that news will become a central asset for both divisions – the very heart of our company. Steve is the ideal choice to lead the next phase in the development of Reuters News as a core capability for Thomson Reuters.”
Schlesinger, 50, joined Reuters in 1987 as a correspondent in Hong Kong. He is a fluent Mandarin speaker and former head of Reuters’ editorial operations in China. “He’s far better known in China than I am,” Glocer said, adding that it would have taken him 20 years to build the same level of trust within a market where relationships matter were he just visiting twice a year from his New York head office.
Glocer said it was the perfect moment for Schlesinger to return to China in a senior strategic role to support the development of the group’s businesses in this key market. “David brings extraordinary passion and experience to this mission.”
He added: “Our news organisation is now poised to advance to new levels of excellence in an industry which is moving very fast. Please join me in thanking David for getting us here and supporting Steve as he takes us forward.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | MarketWire
Tom Glocer sees multi-speed optimism for multi-speed world
Thursday 27 January 2011
Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said on Thursday he generally shared rising business optimism, though "it's a multi-speed optimism for a multi-speed world".
Glocer told Reuters Insider television at the World Economic Forum in Davos that in "Brazil, the Gulf, Asia the optimism is off the charts but it feels a little bit different at the periphery in Europe. On balance, given a balanced business like ours, yes it's very positive for 2011".
Glocer said banks were rebalancing their activity. Fixed income desks had a rough time in the second half of last year but people were now positioning themselves for the long-term environment.
Speaking about the company’s business generally, Glocer said: "In our world, Latin America is very strong for us, not only in the financial services world but in legal and in tax and accounting as well, so we're excited about it."
Asked about other growth areas, Glocer said; "The Gulf has been strong right through, India and China are strong for us and also at the edges of Asia. Pretty much everywhere, even Japan has had a pretty good run for us in the last couple of years."
● SOURCE Business Standard
Glocer told Reuters Insider television at the World Economic Forum in Davos that in "Brazil, the Gulf, Asia the optimism is off the charts but it feels a little bit different at the periphery in Europe. On balance, given a balanced business like ours, yes it's very positive for 2011".
Glocer said banks were rebalancing their activity. Fixed income desks had a rough time in the second half of last year but people were now positioning themselves for the long-term environment.
Speaking about the company’s business generally, Glocer said: "In our world, Latin America is very strong for us, not only in the financial services world but in legal and in tax and accounting as well, so we're excited about it."
Asked about other growth areas, Glocer said; "The Gulf has been strong right through, India and China are strong for us and also at the edges of Asia. Pretty much everywhere, even Japan has had a pretty good run for us in the last couple of years."
● SOURCE Business Standard
Thomson Reuters exploring consumer video service - Tom Glocer
Friday 10 December 2010
“We sort of have a consumer following, almost less by intention and more just because people find and, thank God, trust us in particular in crisis and in particular with respect to international serious news and economics, they turn to ● Reuters.com or some of the apps we have,” Glocer said at the Le Web conference in Paris on Thursday.
“We are thinking about, whether we couldn’t, the time isn't right, to aggregate a serious international audience.
“We’re a fairly serious company. We’re unlikely to put the pretty blonde on the couch to read news to you or to have banter back and forth about ‘Hey, you know, how was the game last night?’ And the challenge in traditional broadcast has been to reach a large enough audience to monetise the advertising or to pay back the cost of cable carriage, or even in the old days in newspapers to pay back distribution and the printing plant you had to go quite broad…
“But the neat thing about what the Internet has done for us all is, it is now possible to aggregate the smaller proportion, let’s say, of Americans who listen to NPR, might watch the BBC, read The Economist, etc, and the equal or larger number of Germans and French who do, into an international audience. You still have the language issue, but, you know, this conference is in English, so we’re looking at whether there actually might now be a time to do more of it.”
Tom Glocer: We’ll end uncertainty over pension increases
Wednesday 08 December 2010
The plans – Reuters Pension Fund and the Supplementary Pension Scheme – are currently about 90 per cent funded. The company’s last major injection of funds was in 2006.
A more permanent method of increases has got to be the right approach, Glocer told members of The Reuter Society. The issue was what was a fair result. “It’s more an issue of the deficit, and an issue of what the company can contribute. It’s more an issue of what the company can do.
“I’ve told them, find some way so we don’t just leave people with uncertainty… It doesn’t sit well with me and it doesn’t sit well with Thomson colleagues as well.”
Glocer said he was mindful that there had been no inflation increase to pensions in the last two years, adding: “I care a lot about our obligations to our pensioners and all our pension plans around the world.
“We’ll do whatever we need to do,” Glocer said at the Society’s 2oth anniversary meeting in London.
“It’s not some black hole that nobody cares about. I do, the finance director does, and more important, the treasurer does.”
Answering questions put by Michael Cooling, former corporate relations manager, Glocer said he had spent a lot of time on the cultural fit between the Thomson and Reuters sides of the company. “In the longer term it’ll be the cultural dogs that don’t come back to bite.”
The CEO also made these other points:
● The financial services side of the company – the markets division’s 60 per cent of the business – was challenging and banks were not forecasting profit growth next year. Growth on the professional side of the company in 2011 would be somewhat stronger than in markets and the whole of the company could grow by five to seven per cent.
● The adoption of the Reuters Trust Principles by the entire merged company was “a pretty good test of character”.
● The resignation of columnist Neil Collins over trading in shares he owned and wrote about on the commentary service Reuters Breakingviews was less damaging than a series of issues in the Middle East. “What he did knowingly and on multiple occasions was to break the rules of the Reuters Principles and Breakingviews as well. I’m quite confident he wasn’t trading on inside information. The facts of the case were pretty straightforward. I worry more about our neutrality and independence in reporting from Israel and the Palestinian Territories because people scrutinise every word from there.”
● The Thomson Reuters Alumni group will be re-established but budgets are really tough for next year and an electronic structure will be built before events can resume, possibly in 2012 or perhaps the second half of 2011. To make it effective there had to be a proper plan to ensure communications between the disparate elements of the Thomson Reuters group.
Photo: Left to right, Reuter Society chairman Stephen Somerville, Tom Glocer and Michael Cooling.
Thomson Reuters’ Q3 profit up 65% as revenue resumes growth
Thursday 28 October 2010
Thomson Reuters’ third-quarter profit jumped 65 per cent as revenue started growing for the first time in a year, the company reported on Thursday.
Raising its full-year revenue forecast, Thomson Reuters said that, based on year-to-date performance and improved momentum, it now sees 2010 revenue being flat to slightly up rather than flat to slightly down. The company has been slowly recovering from last year's downturn, which squeezed the financial companies and law firms that subscribe to its services. The rebound is moving faster than it had forecast.
“We're past the bottom and on the way back up,” said Tom Glocer, chief executive.
Underlying operating profit fell four per cent to $681 million, mainly due to investment in new products, causing the operating profit margin to slip slightly to 21 per cent. Thomson Reuters has invested $1 billion in initiatives including Insider, an online financial video news service, and Eikon, a desktop trading terminal that it sells to financial professionals.
The markets division, which includes financial products such as trading terminals and the Reuters news service, suffered the worst of the recession as the hard-hit financial sector shed jobs. It saw a modest one per cent revenue uptick during the quarter, excluding the effect of currency swings. Including currency, revenue slipped one per cent to $1.85 billion.
The professional division, which includes services for law, tax and accounting firms and for the health care and sciences industries, grew revenue five per cent to $1.41 billion.
Overall, the company reported net income rose to $268 million, or 32 cents per share, in the quarter ended 30 September, up from $162 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 49 cents from 43 cents a year earlier because of lower integration costs related to Thomson's purchase of Reuters in 2008. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 44 cents per share.
Revenue edged up one per cent to $3.26 billion from $3.22 billion a year ago. The average forecast was $3.2 billion.
“People who understand how our subscription model works will figure out that positive net sales this far into the year will imply revenue growth next year other than in the most extraordinary circumstances,” Glocer said.
● SOURCE Reuters
Raising its full-year revenue forecast, Thomson Reuters said that, based on year-to-date performance and improved momentum, it now sees 2010 revenue being flat to slightly up rather than flat to slightly down. The company has been slowly recovering from last year's downturn, which squeezed the financial companies and law firms that subscribe to its services. The rebound is moving faster than it had forecast.
“We're past the bottom and on the way back up,” said Tom Glocer, chief executive.
Underlying operating profit fell four per cent to $681 million, mainly due to investment in new products, causing the operating profit margin to slip slightly to 21 per cent. Thomson Reuters has invested $1 billion in initiatives including Insider, an online financial video news service, and Eikon, a desktop trading terminal that it sells to financial professionals.
The markets division, which includes financial products such as trading terminals and the Reuters news service, suffered the worst of the recession as the hard-hit financial sector shed jobs. It saw a modest one per cent revenue uptick during the quarter, excluding the effect of currency swings. Including currency, revenue slipped one per cent to $1.85 billion.
The professional division, which includes services for law, tax and accounting firms and for the health care and sciences industries, grew revenue five per cent to $1.41 billion.
Overall, the company reported net income rose to $268 million, or 32 cents per share, in the quarter ended 30 September, up from $162 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 49 cents from 43 cents a year earlier because of lower integration costs related to Thomson's purchase of Reuters in 2008. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 44 cents per share.
Revenue edged up one per cent to $3.26 billion from $3.22 billion a year ago. The average forecast was $3.2 billion.
“People who understand how our subscription model works will figure out that positive net sales this far into the year will imply revenue growth next year other than in the most extraordinary circumstances,” Glocer said.
● SOURCE Reuters
Tom Glocer: Building on a year of achievement
Thursday 23 September 2010
The Thomson Reuters Board, meeting in London last week, heard detailed updates on technology initiatives, talent programmes and acquisition strategy. The chief executive said disclosure rules kept him from sharing details on the last item, but on the other two subjects he did not need to be so guarded.
“Our approach to technology seeks to balance investment in innovation on the one hand with scale-efficiency projects on the other, both within and across our divisions,” Glocer said in a message circulated to the group’s 55,000 employees. “This balance enables us both to grow revenues through new and improved products and to improve customer service and time-to-market while reducing costs through greater leverage of technology platforms. Getting this balance right is not easy and requires constant attention, but it is one of the most important elements of our success. We must stay agile and ‘light on our technology feet’ (as I describe it to my fellow directors), while still placing large bets on technology infrastructures such as data storage and distribution which give us a competitive advantage.”
The Board was also presented with a detailed review of the group’s various talent programmes, “which are intended to ensure that we have a robust pipeline of future leaders and the right development opportunities in place to motivate and stretch them”, Glocer said.
He said he was proud of the company’s many investments in talent. “Next month, for example, we'll be launching a Career Development Month in the Americas, a UKI diversity week and other people initiatives around the globe. Most of what the company spends, we spend quite rightly on people and technology.”
London was also the setting for the launch of Thomson Reuters Eikon, “which targets the new generation of financial professionals who are distinguished by their affinity for technology, greater demand for real-time information and an outlook that transcends social, geographic or language barriers”. It offers these professionals a single place to turn for comprehensive, critical content, Glocer said. “Three years in the making, Eikon is truly a ‘new tool for a new era’.”
He called Eikon “a real game-changer” and congratulated Devin Wenig, markets division chief executive, and “the entire Markets team for delivering one hot platform”. Early sales results confirm that the company has another winner on its hands.
In addition to Eikon and WestlawNext, which sets the standard for what the new generation of legal professionals need to do their jobs, Thomson Reuters also released Reuters Insider, an interactive on-demand video platform, and Elektron, an ultra-high speed data distribution network, in 2010. A global tax workstation called ONESOURCE and Advantage Suite 5.0 for healthcare are scheduled for launch in the fourth quarter. “I am very proud that we continued to invest through the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008-2009, and we are now set to reap the rewards of this strategy,” Glocer said.
“It is important that we prove to our shareholders, other stakeholders, and especially to ourselves, that we can reap these rewards. We have had the rare permission over the past two years to keep investing in the projects that we believe in, but now we must show that we can turn this confidence into revenue and profit growth.
“This balance between investment and return, over the short and the long term, is another balance we must get right. It is with this in mind that we have begun to prepare the 2011 budget.
“In the coming quarter there's much to be done to realize the full potential of this year of achievement and prepare for 2011. Building on the strongest roster of products we have ever had, I have no doubt we will succeed.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Thomson and Reuters 'a matter for the next generation' - David Thomson
Saturday 18 September 2010
“Canadian media family executive David Thomson rarely ventures outside his Toronto hometown, but he was in London for a board meeting of Thomson Reuters followed by drinks and dinner with the City’s movers and shakers,” the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
“At the British Museum event midweek, he expressed faith in the digital media future, ahead of a relaunch of the family’s Globe and Mail publication in Canada. But he shrugged off the question of whether the Thomson name would remain twinned with Reuters as a matter for the next generation.”
The FT gave no further details about Thomson’s remarks at the event. It said chief executive Tom Glocer welcomed HSBC chairman and UK trade minister designate Stephen Green, who was a fellow panellist at a conference held during the week by strategic advisory group Oxford Analytica on global risk and the global economy.
Thomson, 53, grandson of the family media empire’s founder the late Lord Thomson, became chairman of Thomson Corporation in 2002 and chairman of the merged entity after the acquisition of Reuters in 2008. He does not use his hereditary title of 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet. Forbes magazine ranks him and his family the richest in Canada and 20th richest in the world with a fortune of C$19 billion.
Lord Thomson founded a media dynasty, ensuring that control passed to his son, Kenneth who died in 2006, and his son, David. In his 1975 autobiography, Lord Thomson wrote: “David, my grandson, will have to take his part in the running of the Organisation and David’s son, too. With the fortune that we will leave to them go also responsibilities. These Thomson boys that come after Ken are not going to be able, even if they want to, to shrug off these responsibilities.”
● SOURCE Financial Times
Tom Glocer on Eikon: You too can make it sing
Friday 17 September 2010
Glocer and the Cass dean, chief operating officer Alex Fraser, pictured, cut an orange ribbon in the new Thomson Reuters zone at the school which is decorated in the company’s orange livery.
“With the previous products it took a huge amount of training to make it sing,” Glocer said. Eikon, by contrast, uses new tools like web-style navigation and social networking. “You can do what I do; just play with it and explore,” Glocer said.
The zone initially has just one Eikon terminal with some data on a 15-minute delay but a separate room at the school with 3000 Xtra workstations, which Eikon replaces, is set to be converted later. A further room at the school has Bloomberg machines.
A Thomson Reuters trainer showed highlights of Eikon – marketed with the slogan “New era. New tools” – to a small group. He stressed that there was no need to set up and save sheets, as with 3000 Xtra, though this function is available. He showed how easy it was to click between user-friendly displays of news, data and graphs and import data into Excel. The trainer joked that it was likely to put trainers out of work.
The first Cass student to use the terminal, who was familiar with Bloomberg, said he found Eikon much friendlier because of the familiar web-style links.
A Thomson Reuters salesman said privately that converting clients would be a major focus for the sales force in the next three years. Although clients do not pay extra for Eikon, many have complex systems of their own with which it needs to be integrated, he said.
● Eikon at Cass Business School | VIDEO
Thomson Reuters wins $20.8 million New York tax breaks case
Tuesday 03 August 2010
New York City's Industrial Development Agency (NYCIDA) on Tuesday approved Thomson Reuters' application to transfer up to $20.8 million in unused city and state sales tax subsidies from its 3 Times Square headquarters to seven other properties in Manhattan.
The application had been opposed by the Newspaper Guild of New York which is in a contract dispute with the company. The previous contract expired in February 2009 and in January 2010 Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed new work rules that the union said were aimed at eliminating the Guild as the employees' representative.
The union, which represents 420 reporters, editors and technical workers at Thomson Reuters, had sought to persuade city officials to delay the tax breaks until the company explained its job creation record and cleared alleged labor violations.
The Industrial Development Agency is the city agency in charge of approving discretionary tax subsidies to local businesses. Under a new NYCIDA deal, Thomson Reuters must increase its base employment commitment from the current 1,800 jobs to 3,744 and grow its overall headcount in the city above 4,210 to access all of the tax breaks.
The approval is also contingent upon Thomson Reuters resolving eight outstanding charges of unfair labor practices – some of which deal with the contract negotiations – pending before the National Labor Relations Board, failing which the company would lose the subsidies, a spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corporation said.
Subsidies totalling $28 million were originally agreed in 1998 for construction of the 3 Times Square tower with Reuters as the anchor tenant. Construction of the 30-storey building on Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets was completed in 2001. Under the agreement Reuters committed to remain at the location – known as 3XSQ – to 2021, retain its 1,800 employees in the city and add another 2,348 jobs. But the promised jobs did not materialise, leading to Reuters paying back $330,000 and forfeiting $1.7 million in sales tax breaks. Some $20 million in tax credits were not used.
At a public hearing last week the Guild's parent union, the Communication Workers of America, argued that Thomson Reuters had failed to meet the standards of good corporate citizenship in its treatment of Guild-represented employees. It said that instead of adding jobs, Thomson Reuters’ track record was cutting jobs, including transferring work to Bangalore and Canada.
Thomson Reuters marketing president for the Americas Chris Perry said the new deal was needed to "get the commitment of the merged company to stay in New York City”. He added: "We have several unused facilities that include Stamford, Connecticut, Hauppauge, New York, Nutley, New Jersey, and Jersey City, all of which are available to look at as options." Failure to approve the subsidy "will cause us to re-look at our real estate strategy", Perry said.
Chief executive Tom Glocer, in a letter to New York City’s public advocate Bill de Blasio, said the Guild had failed to make a substantive counterproposal after Thomson Reuters made a proposal to reconcile a year ago. He said the Guild “never made a proposal for wages and benefits, two of the core issues of the negotiations,” and that the NYCIDA was not the right department to handle labor disputes. Glocer said the company remained positive and hopeful of reconciliation with the Guild.
● SOURCE Crain's New York Business | IDA Report
The application had been opposed by the Newspaper Guild of New York which is in a contract dispute with the company. The previous contract expired in February 2009 and in January 2010 Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed new work rules that the union said were aimed at eliminating the Guild as the employees' representative.
The union, which represents 420 reporters, editors and technical workers at Thomson Reuters, had sought to persuade city officials to delay the tax breaks until the company explained its job creation record and cleared alleged labor violations.
The Industrial Development Agency is the city agency in charge of approving discretionary tax subsidies to local businesses. Under a new NYCIDA deal, Thomson Reuters must increase its base employment commitment from the current 1,800 jobs to 3,744 and grow its overall headcount in the city above 4,210 to access all of the tax breaks.
The approval is also contingent upon Thomson Reuters resolving eight outstanding charges of unfair labor practices – some of which deal with the contract negotiations – pending before the National Labor Relations Board, failing which the company would lose the subsidies, a spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corporation said.
Subsidies totalling $28 million were originally agreed in 1998 for construction of the 3 Times Square tower with Reuters as the anchor tenant. Construction of the 30-storey building on Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets was completed in 2001. Under the agreement Reuters committed to remain at the location – known as 3XSQ – to 2021, retain its 1,800 employees in the city and add another 2,348 jobs. But the promised jobs did not materialise, leading to Reuters paying back $330,000 and forfeiting $1.7 million in sales tax breaks. Some $20 million in tax credits were not used.
At a public hearing last week the Guild's parent union, the Communication Workers of America, argued that Thomson Reuters had failed to meet the standards of good corporate citizenship in its treatment of Guild-represented employees. It said that instead of adding jobs, Thomson Reuters’ track record was cutting jobs, including transferring work to Bangalore and Canada.
Thomson Reuters marketing president for the Americas Chris Perry said the new deal was needed to "get the commitment of the merged company to stay in New York City”. He added: "We have several unused facilities that include Stamford, Connecticut, Hauppauge, New York, Nutley, New Jersey, and Jersey City, all of which are available to look at as options." Failure to approve the subsidy "will cause us to re-look at our real estate strategy", Perry said.
Chief executive Tom Glocer, in a letter to New York City’s public advocate Bill de Blasio, said the Guild had failed to make a substantive counterproposal after Thomson Reuters made a proposal to reconcile a year ago. He said the Guild “never made a proposal for wages and benefits, two of the core issues of the negotiations,” and that the NYCIDA was not the right department to handle labor disputes. Glocer said the company remained positive and hopeful of reconciliation with the Guild.
● SOURCE Crain's New York Business | IDA Report
Tom Glocer: Lack of cost of living pension increase 'an important issue'
Monday 19 July 2010
In a letter to Angela Dean, chairman of the Pension Review Group, Thomson Reuters’ chief executive addressed issues raised by Reuters pensioners and other former staff. Dean had raised matters of concern to members of Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme in an e-mail to the CEO.
“As for the important issue of pensions, I am very sympathetic,” Glocer replied. “As you are aware the current Funding Agreement was reached with the RPF trustees in 2006 pursuant to which Reuters paid off the pension deficit and a mechanism was put in place which allowed discretionary inflationary increases when the Plan is in surplus. Fortunately, increases have been granted each year since 2006 other than January 2009 – when fallout from the global financial crisis on Plan assets did not permit the trustees to approve an increase and January 2010 because RPI was negative. We are committed to continuing to work with the RPF trustees on these issues and look forward to reaching a solution that meets our common desire to secure pensioners’ retirements.
“I would like to emphasize that we have the highest regard for our retirees and other alumni in London and around the world, not only as important stakeholders but also for their part in helping to build Thomson Reuters into the global leader it is today. We are currently evaluating options for launching a global alumni program that will support more frequent communication between the company and its alumni and bring current and former employees together in London and our other major centers. It is my sincere hope that this forum, alongside the long-standing Reuters Society, will come to be highly valued by our wider retiree community.”
On the matter of the discontinued pensioners’ lunch, last held in London in April 2008, Glocer said “…it feels inappropriate to me to continue pensioners’ lunches in London for only legacy Reuters pensioners when staff all over the world have given service to Thomson Reuters and its constituent companies. We did look at the cost of organizing similar events in the now numerous locations in which we have a large population of retirees; however, this proved too expensive in the current environment…”
Thomson Reuters Foundation launches pro bono legal service
Tuesday 22 June 2010
TrustLaw provides a free online matching service promoting the practice of pro bono legal work. It will also become the first international information hub on anti-corruption and governance issues.
Glocer told staff in an internal message: “Here's how it works: If you are an NGO, a social entrepreneur or even a government in need, you can contact TrustLaw Connect and be put in touch with leading law firms with specialist skills in the area where you need help. They will give you some of the best legal advice available, for free. This is the essence of pro bono – offering a free service for the public good.”
TrustLaw creates a new free international marketplace for pro bono projects. “I've spoken to a number of legal managing partners and they are really getting behind TrustLaw as a way to meet their social responsibilities,” Glocer, himself a lawyer, said. “Big name law firms including Freshfields, Clifford Chance and Baker & McKenzie are among some 190 organizations signed up to TrustLaw Connect already.”
Glocer said the idea for TrustLaw first came from Thomson Reuters’ own clients. “We asked NGO members of our AlertNet humanitarian website what service they needed most that we could assist them with, and they told us it was legal advice.
“Foundation CEO Monique Villa and her team have done an outstanding job in turning this idea into a reality. It adds to the Foundation's excellent work in launching its Emergency Information Service to help the people of Haiti after January's earthquake, and to the long-established program for training journalists in developing countries.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
● TrustLaw
UK pensioners tell Thomson Reuters they feel they are 'a costly irrelevance'
Thursday 03 June 2010
Retired UK staff feel they are marginalised and are regarded by Thomson Reuters as a costly irrelevance, pensioners have told chief executive Tom Glocer.
The chairman of the Pension Review Group, Angela Dean, was denied an opportunity to ask a question at Thomson Reuters’ annual shareholders meeting; the traditional pensioners’ lunches have been “stealthily axed”; and alumni network meetings seem to have been severely cut back, if not cancelled altogether.
Dean, in a letter to Glocer, said: “Reuters UK pensioners have had no cost of living increase for five of the past eight years, resulting in significant erosion of living standards.”
She attended the AGM at Canary Wharf, London on 14 May with the intention of putting the following question openly and directly to the Thomson Reuters board:
"In the past eight years, because of the iniquitous system of discretionary annual awards – a complete change of practice from the previous 30 years – UK pensioners have suffered a real decrease in the value of their pensions, impacting most severely on those reliant on just a small retirement income from the company. If UK retail price inflation continues at the latest March rate of 4.4 per cent, this deficit could be well into double figures by the time of our next review.
“When is Thomson Reuters going to do the decent thing and rescue its British based pensioners from the threat of increasing hardship?"
Although the AGM was held in Toronto, UK shareholders had been assured in the meeting notification that there would be a video link.
“Just before the start of the meeting, we were informed that there was no interactive link to Toronto, though no reason was given, and we would have to submit any questions in writing, and they would be answered in due course,” Dean said.
“The AGM opened with a fleeting acknowledgement to shareholders in London and after that there was no other reference to this invisible group that had made the effort to attend the meeting at 5pm on a Friday. Indeed, one was left with the impression from attending that meeting, of being on the margins; we were a small number of shareholders who were probably only pensioners anyway, who did not warrant the financial outlay of an interactive link, and least of all the courtesy of making those in London feel they were part of the larger meeting and the Thomson Reuters Group.”
Dean said she handed in a written copy of the question but as yet has had no reply.
“Apart from this affront, I was left with the impression that the London shareholders who took the trouble to attend not only were invisible but non-existent. If my recollection is correct there was just one passing reference at the outset to a presence in London,” she told Glocer.
She added: “This kind of treatment does not befit a significant, wealthy international organisation with supposedly altruistic values.”
● Pension Review Group
The chairman of the Pension Review Group, Angela Dean, was denied an opportunity to ask a question at Thomson Reuters’ annual shareholders meeting; the traditional pensioners’ lunches have been “stealthily axed”; and alumni network meetings seem to have been severely cut back, if not cancelled altogether.
Dean, in a letter to Glocer, said: “Reuters UK pensioners have had no cost of living increase for five of the past eight years, resulting in significant erosion of living standards.”
She attended the AGM at Canary Wharf, London on 14 May with the intention of putting the following question openly and directly to the Thomson Reuters board:
"In the past eight years, because of the iniquitous system of discretionary annual awards – a complete change of practice from the previous 30 years – UK pensioners have suffered a real decrease in the value of their pensions, impacting most severely on those reliant on just a small retirement income from the company. If UK retail price inflation continues at the latest March rate of 4.4 per cent, this deficit could be well into double figures by the time of our next review.
“When is Thomson Reuters going to do the decent thing and rescue its British based pensioners from the threat of increasing hardship?"
Although the AGM was held in Toronto, UK shareholders had been assured in the meeting notification that there would be a video link.
“Just before the start of the meeting, we were informed that there was no interactive link to Toronto, though no reason was given, and we would have to submit any questions in writing, and they would be answered in due course,” Dean said.
“The AGM opened with a fleeting acknowledgement to shareholders in London and after that there was no other reference to this invisible group that had made the effort to attend the meeting at 5pm on a Friday. Indeed, one was left with the impression from attending that meeting, of being on the margins; we were a small number of shareholders who were probably only pensioners anyway, who did not warrant the financial outlay of an interactive link, and least of all the courtesy of making those in London feel they were part of the larger meeting and the Thomson Reuters Group.”
Dean said she handed in a written copy of the question but as yet has had no reply.
“Apart from this affront, I was left with the impression that the London shareholders who took the trouble to attend not only were invisible but non-existent. If my recollection is correct there was just one passing reference at the outset to a presence in London,” she told Glocer.
She added: “This kind of treatment does not befit a significant, wealthy international organisation with supposedly altruistic values.”
● Pension Review Group
Tom Glocer, blogging again, defends lawyers
Tuesday 18 May 2010
"For those of you who thought that my recent post on Goldman Sachs was controversial, you will no doubt decide that I have certifiably lost my mind to come to the defense of lawyers. Of all the undeserving species that roam the earth, none is as commonly reviled as Lawyer Americanus," the CEO wrote.
Glocer’s original post on 22 April attracted the attention of The New York Times and drew unfavourable comment from more than half the readers who wrote in to his blog as well as from some visitors to this website and the Newspaper Guild of New York (which is in contract dispute with Thomson Reuters).
Glocer, a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer who joined Reuters in 1993 as deputy counsel, Reuters America, acknowledged the legal profession is often viewed as loathsome, saying "lawyers are a pain in the ass because life can be a pain in the ass".
"Most of the lawyers I know, and I readily admit they include more big firm attorneys, judges, general counsels and law professors, are kind, decent people who were often attracted to the law in the first place by an enhanced sense of fairness or justice, and who will listen and respond to rational argument. There are also a certain number of moral retrobates (sic) who prey on the weak and the innocent and produce nothing of socially-redeeming value while billing at a high hourly rate, but, in my experience, they are generally the exception.
"I have tended to keep these thoughts to myself over a career now split about equally between time working as a lawyer and time working as a manager. However, for the last two years I have had the good fortune to be reunited with the law, through the Legal business of Thomson Reuters. We employ so many attorneys to produce and support our services for legal professionals, that we would count among the 20 largest law firms in the US. This has given me not just the excuse, but the obligation, to get back in touch with the people and substance of my professional roots, and this has been both rewarding and enjoyable.
"So the next time you feel ready to garrotte ‘the other guy’s’ lawyer, just ask yourself the question whether it is not her principal you should strangle instead, and reflect on whether this highly ritualized form of battle is not preferable to the law of the jungle."
● SOURCE Tom Glocer's blog: In Defense of Lawyers
Expect revenue growth in 2nd half, Tom Glocer tells shareholders
Friday 14 May 2010
Thomson Reuters has weathered the economic storm and expects to return to revenue growth in the second half of this year, CEO Tom Glocer said on Friday.
He told shareholders at the group’s annual general meeting in Toronto that Thomson Reuters stood to gain from this year's new products, including software for the financial services industry, tax professionals and lawyers, as well as Reuters Insider, a new Web-based business news television service launched this week.
"While many companies had to slash their R&D budgets just to be able to survive the recession, we had the financial strength and determination to keep investing in product development," Glocer said. "...These investments are now beginning to bear fruit and it's very exciting. I strongly believe that the combination of improving market conditions that we see now, new flagship offerings and scalable infrastructure, positions our company very well to grow and deliver shareholder value in 2011 and beyond," he added.
In comments after the meeting Glocer said the company was still looking at acquisitions, although he did not predict any deals with more than a $1 billion price tag. “Our history has been to make a number of small to medium-size fold-in acquisitions, and that’ll be true this year as well ... There’s more in the pipeline,” Glocer said.
Shareholders voted in favour of a plan to freeze base salaries for Glocer and four other key executives this year, in a so-called “say on pay” resolution. Glocer’s $1.55 million base salary was a small fraction of his total 2009 compensation of $36.6 million, which included performance pay. The company said the results of the vote would be released next week. At last year’s AGM, 17.7 per cent voted against top executives' pay packages. About 53 per cent of the company's stock is owned by Canada’s Thomson family.
Asked about an ongoing labour dispute with 420 journalists in New York, Glocer said contract negotiations begun in October 2008 with The Newspaper Guild of New York had reached an impasse. The union has accused the company of trying to impose an illegal pay cut on its members. The company disputes this. Glocer said he was still hopeful the two sides could reach a negotiated settlement but added "we have to be tough on costs".
“We are in a very delicate place right now,” Glocer said in response to a question by Lise Lareau of the Canadian Media Guild. “ ... I’m comfortable that legally and ethically the company has acted properly.”
● SOURCE The Canadian Press | The Globe and Mail
He told shareholders at the group’s annual general meeting in Toronto that Thomson Reuters stood to gain from this year's new products, including software for the financial services industry, tax professionals and lawyers, as well as Reuters Insider, a new Web-based business news television service launched this week.
"While many companies had to slash their R&D budgets just to be able to survive the recession, we had the financial strength and determination to keep investing in product development," Glocer said. "...These investments are now beginning to bear fruit and it's very exciting. I strongly believe that the combination of improving market conditions that we see now, new flagship offerings and scalable infrastructure, positions our company very well to grow and deliver shareholder value in 2011 and beyond," he added.
In comments after the meeting Glocer said the company was still looking at acquisitions, although he did not predict any deals with more than a $1 billion price tag. “Our history has been to make a number of small to medium-size fold-in acquisitions, and that’ll be true this year as well ... There’s more in the pipeline,” Glocer said.
Shareholders voted in favour of a plan to freeze base salaries for Glocer and four other key executives this year, in a so-called “say on pay” resolution. Glocer’s $1.55 million base salary was a small fraction of his total 2009 compensation of $36.6 million, which included performance pay. The company said the results of the vote would be released next week. At last year’s AGM, 17.7 per cent voted against top executives' pay packages. About 53 per cent of the company's stock is owned by Canada’s Thomson family.
Asked about an ongoing labour dispute with 420 journalists in New York, Glocer said contract negotiations begun in October 2008 with The Newspaper Guild of New York had reached an impasse. The union has accused the company of trying to impose an illegal pay cut on its members. The company disputes this. Glocer said he was still hopeful the two sides could reach a negotiated settlement but added "we have to be tough on costs".
“We are in a very delicate place right now,” Glocer said in response to a question by Lise Lareau of the Canadian Media Guild. “ ... I’m comfortable that legally and ethically the company has acted properly.”
● SOURCE The Canadian Press | The Globe and Mail
No more pensioners’ lunches - Tom Glocer
Thursday 13 May 2010
The pensioners’ lunch, for decades a popular fixture on the calendar for retired Reuterians, is history. The company can no longer justify it and it would be too expensive and unmanageable to extend it to the rest of the group, says chief executive Tom Glocer.
Mike Dixon sent an e-mail to Glocer about the lack of a pensioners’ lunch this year. The lunch was originally held in London every year and then cut back to every other year. The last one was held on 28 April 2008, ten days after Thomson completed its takeover of Reuters. More than 600 people attended.
The CEO replied to Dixon: “We took the decision (reluctantly for me) not to continue pensioners lunches for only the Reuters part of our company in London.
“With 55,000 current staff in locations all over the world, and despite the strong historic ties to London, I felt we could no longer justify only holding these events in London. We did look at the costs of expanding the events to every location where we have a few thousand employees, but this proved too expensive and unmanageable.
“I am sorry to be the kill sport here.”
Fellow pensioner Roy Langley commented: “Kill Sport or Kill Joy, this was the one occasion when we could get together with old colleagues. It didn't have to be such a grand do, it's not much to ask for the thousands of years of service all the pensioners have given.”
Mike Dixon sent an e-mail to Glocer about the lack of a pensioners’ lunch this year. The lunch was originally held in London every year and then cut back to every other year. The last one was held on 28 April 2008, ten days after Thomson completed its takeover of Reuters. More than 600 people attended.
The CEO replied to Dixon: “We took the decision (reluctantly for me) not to continue pensioners lunches for only the Reuters part of our company in London.
“With 55,000 current staff in locations all over the world, and despite the strong historic ties to London, I felt we could no longer justify only holding these events in London. We did look at the costs of expanding the events to every location where we have a few thousand employees, but this proved too expensive and unmanageable.
“I am sorry to be the kill sport here.”
Fellow pensioner Roy Langley commented: “Kill Sport or Kill Joy, this was the one occasion when we could get together with old colleagues. It didn't have to be such a grand do, it's not much to ask for the thousands of years of service all the pensioners have given.”
Tom Glocer: I'll carry on blogging
Wednesday 05 May 2010
The chief executive was speaking to the FT in New York on Tuesday where Thomson Reuters presented its 2010 Q1 financial results. The newspaper's reporter noted that the US investment bank was a large client and said Glocer's comments were "a subject of intense scrutiny by journalists at Reuters and elsewhere".
"His warning of a 'rush to judgement' by 'our media-driven society' and suggestion that Goldman’s problems may only be the fault of 'a couple of bad apples' angered some Reuters journalists, but Mr Glocer told the FT: 'I stand by whatever I wrote.'
"'It’s a personal blog and I write about what interests me,' he said. Nobody at Goldman had asked him to make his remarks, he said. 'I guess the question is: Can the CEO of Thomson Reuters have a blog at all and if so can he ever comment on a client. I’m comfortable with where it is,’” the FT said. Glocer added that he would not censor negative comments on the blog, it said.
Behind the scenes the dialogue is getting downright personal over Glocer's defence of Goldman Sachs and also over complaints by former staff of the perceived lacklustre company response to the leaked military footage showing two Reuters people shot dead in Iraq by the US military, said Philip Stone, a former Reuters media executive based in Geneva.
Stone wrote a commentary headed "Reuters Old British Guard None Too Enamored With The New Guard Thomson Reuters American Senior Team", on his own blog, Follow the Media, which covers media issues worldwide.
"That Glocer would go public defending Goldman Sachs was a break in tradition for the news agency that had been British-operated until Glocer and his American team took over in July 2001, eventually overseeing in 2008 its majority sale to the Canadian Thomson family with his team transferring to the new company," Stone wrote. "The unwritten rule had been that management didn’t comment on news events for fear of perceptions of bias in the editorial reporting of those events. So now questions are publicly asked whether Glocer’s comments will be seen by the news side as a message to go easy with a major client.
"In actual fact the opposite is true. If Glocer had been looking for a way to actually tell his news people to hit Goldman Sachs as hard as possible, and then some, he could have found no finer way of doing it than by publicly supporting the Wall Street firm. One thing that has not changed with ownership is ferocious editorial independence and the various corporate governances protecting that independence."
It is very doubtful that editorial were best pleased by Glocer’s comments, Stone said, but now that he has spoken so publicly editorial will go overboard to ensure there are no perceptions of its going easy on the story. But statements by the Newspaper Guild of New York and news items by the likes of The New York Times were something that the news organisation didn’t need. "News reputations get built over the years; they can be lost overnight."
Commenting on what he called Glocer's quiet diplomacy approach to the US authorities in the case of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, Stone said it seems that whereas Glocer does not want “to shout from the rooftop criticising the killing of two Reuters staff because he doesn’t think that would do any good, he does shout from the rooftop about the innocence of a major client, so he thinks Goldman Sachs will benefit from that particular shouting? It’s that very perception that the CEO of a very proud news organization should always, not sometimes, strive to avoid,” Stone wrote.
"Many years ago an old Reuters sage once advised a new manager, 'Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean that you actually go and do it.' It was good advice then; it’s good advice for even a CEO to remember today."
● SOURCE Financial Times | Tom Glocer’s blog | Follow the Media
Thomson Reuters Q1 net profit falls 31% to $555 million
Tuesday 04 May 2010
"The tentative recovery in our net sales that we began to see in the second half of 2009 has firmed and accelerated in the first quarter of 2010," chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement.
First-quarter underlying profit was $555 million, down six per cent from $590 million last year. Adjusted earnings per share fell to 36 cents from 40 cents in the same quarter last year, but beat the average analyst forecast of 31 cents. Revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.14 billion. Analysts expected $3.11 billion. Foreign exchange rate movements excluded, revenue fell two per cent.
The company stuck to its February forecast, saying net sales would strengthen throughout 2010. It also repeated that this year's revenue would be flat to slightly down and that underlying free cash flow would be down slightly from 2009 as it invests in new products and platforms.
Thomson Reuters said it would spend more than $1 billion on new technology and products. Among them is Eikon, a new desktop for financial and trading clients.
MARKETS DIVISION
● Revenue was flat in the markets division, which includes the news service and data products for financial industry customers. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, revenue fell four per cent. Markets revenue depends heavily on long-term subscriptions. The financial crisis, which crested in early 2009, triggered massive layoffs and cancellations of trading terminals. While the economy has improved, many of these cancellations have shown up in recent quarterly results.
PROFESSIONAL DIVISION
● Revenue rose two per cent in the professional division, which sells databases and other information reservoirs to lawyers, accountants, scientists and healthcare workers. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, this revenue rose one per cent. Many law firms cut staff as they struggled in the recession, and cash-strapped clients sought lower legal bills. Legal revenue slipped three per cent before currency adjustments.
● SOURCE Reuters | Transcript of Thomson Reuters call with analysts
CEO’s Goldman defence threatens Reuters objectivity - NY Guild
Wednesday 28 April 2010
“Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer shook our venerable media company’s hallowed commitment to objectivity last week when he devoted a blog post to a lengthy defense of besieged Goldman Sachs, a significant client accused by federal regulators of rigging a financial instrument to favor a big customer without informing other investors,” the Guild, which represents unionised employees, said.
The chief executive wrote on his ● personal blog: “Perhaps (Goldman) will eventually be found liable of these charges, although I rather doubt it.”
What’s wrong with the top officer of a global news and information company exercising his First Amendment rights in a public forum, the Guild asked.
“First of all, it tells Reuters reporters and editors who are covering the Goldman story that the boss is on Goldman’s side. In the newspaper business, press barons and their modern-day corporate successors regularly use the editorial pages to express their opinions about controversial issues. But they have firewalls between news and editorial sections that are widely accepted in the business, even if they’re not so well understood by the public.
“Not so at TR. Without those historic firewalls, the CEO’s publicly expressed opinion could easily be taken as guidance by the reporting staff on how to cover the Goldman story. Fortunately, U.S.-based reporters and editors working on the Goldman story are Guild-covered, which enables them to chase the story without fear of retribution. But for the unprotected frontline supervisors and middle managers who oversee and direct the Goldman coverage, there’s no telling whether the CEO’s latest blog will prompt them to order up certain stories just because they fit Glocer’s opinions.
“Then, there’s public perception. The 160-year reputation of Reuters news as objective and reliable through wars, financial upheavals and natural disasters is one of the reasons clients pay as much as they do for the service and one of the reasons journalists choose to work for Thomson Reuters. Having the CEO take public stands on controversial issues can do nothing but tarnish that hard-earned reputation – and that could threaten sales.”
Debby Zabarenko, Washington-based environment correspondent and head of the Guild unit at Thomson Reuters, said: “What happened to the prized principles of maintaining the appearance and the reality of objectivity? Our members and the company’s clients deserve nothing less.”
The Guild noted that the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles say, among other things, that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved”. Does Glocer’s defence of Goldman Sachs violate the principles? Former editor-in-chief and general manager Michael Reupke seems to think so, the Guild said. It quoted ● Reupke’s letter to The Baron on Tuesday in which he said “It is quite outrageous … for any executive of Reuters, and now surely equally of Thomson Reuters, to express an opinion on the Goldman Sachs affair. Are the Trustees too sleepy to think of stepping in here? If this had happened in my day I doubt whether he could have survived in his job.”
Zabarenko said Glocer’s “extremely inappropriate” comments “could not only tarnish the company’s reputation but that of all Reuters journalists who work hard at being objective. He should disavow his comments immediately.”
The Guild urged Schlesinger to reconsider a union suggestion in February that he issue a statement to the staff and to the public asserting that it shall be the company's policy that no high-level Thomson Reuters executive, sales executive or any other non-editorial manager shall interfere with, or even inquire about, any news story or project that is in the works or being contemplated, and direct the Board of Trustees to appoint an independent ombudsman to act as an advocate for editorial within the organisation.
“By reporting directly to the Trustees, this Editorial advocate would be unfettered by the chains of command in the corporate structure and could credibly monitor, report on and advise on matters affecting editorial integrity,” it said.
● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York
The New York Times raises an eyebrow at Tom Glocer's blog
Monday 26 April 2010
Glocer's posting is an unusual step for a media executive, the Times said on Monday under the headline Thomson Reuters CEO Has a Sympathetic Ear for Goldman Sachs. The New York-based global investment banking and securities firm, a Thomson Reuters customer, has been criticised for its role in the deals. The SEC has accused Goldman Sachs of fraud relating to the structuring and marketing of a synthetic collateral debt obligation (CDO) offering.
"But Mr Glocer – whose firm serves clients in the financial-services industry, and who oversees the Reuters news service – said such criticism wasn't yet merited," the newspaper said in its Media Decoder blog.
“It just seems too easy and too politically expedient to jump on this bandwagon,” Glocer wrote. “Perhaps the firm will eventually be found liable of these charges, although I rather doubt it. But what happened to our prized principles of maintaining innocence prior to being proven guilty?”
Glocer said “Goldman does not need me to defend them – they have far better lawyers on retainer. But when most of the world is ready to convict and condemn before trial, my sense of fairness suggests we should suspend judgment until the full story emerges.”
Among comments posted on Glocer's blog, Dolly wrote: "Your argument is very weak. Did not expect this from you."
A Very Loyal TR employee said: "For every job 'right sourced' to India there is a mother or father who worked hard to build Thomson Reuters. The business world could be many things but fair."
● SOURCE The New York Times | Tom Glocer's blog
Thomson Reuters reveals long-term targets
Monday 19 April 2010
Thomson Reuters on Monday revealed long-term targets for mid-to-high single digit revenue growth rates, operating profit margins in the mid-20 per cent range, and free cash flow in excess of $3 billion.
"The severity and duration of the 'Great Recession' of 2009 has meant that it will take us a little longer to reach these goals, but they appear no less achievable to us," the company said in its latest annual report.
A joint message to shareholders from chairman David Thomson and chief executive Tom Glocer said that despite the most challenging economic conditions they had seen in their business careers the company delivered resilient operating and financial performance in 2009. "We would characterise our results as being excellent on a relative basis and acceptable, but far short of what we believe Thomson Reuters has the potential to achieve, on an absolute basis."
They said they were very proud that while they had worked hard to reduce costs and realise savings through the integration of the acquired Reuters businesses, they had been able to continue and, in fact, increase investment in strategic new product platforms and in the international expansion of the business. “We are well ahead of plan in the integration of Reuters, and by year-end 2009 we had achieved combined run-rate savings of $1.1 billion from our integration and legacy savings programs. We now expect to achieve some 2.5 times greater savings from the Reuters integration ($1.2 billion) than originally forecast."
The Reuters integration had also continued to outpace expectations in terms of bringing new content, technology and services to customers, combining the best elements of the cultures of the legacy organisations, and providing new opportunities for Thomson Reuters’ 55,000 employees.
This year, Thomson Reuters could continue and accelerate the process of taking its businesses global – especially to tap higher growth rates in rapidly developing economies, and add other market sectors where professionals need its special combination of must-have content and technology to do their jobs.
"In 2010, we are following both of these paths to restart growth in our businesses that have been hardest hit by the global recession and accelerate growth in our units that have continued to grow right through the crisis…
"Over the longer term, we believe that our business can achieve mid-to-high single digit revenue growth rates, operating profit margins in the mid-20% range, and free cash flow in excess of $3 billion. The severity and duration of the 'Great Recession' of 2009 has meant that it will take us a little longer to reach these goals, but they appear no less achievable to us."
The report is in a new multimedia format – an online mix of video, text, pictures and animated graphics. "Going digital has made us a much greener company," Glocer said in a video message. "No trees were chopped down in the making of this annual report, unless fossil fuel was consumed in delivering it to you."
Thomson Reuters shareholders annual general meeting is to be held in Toronto on 14 May.
● CLICK to view Thomson Reuters 2009 annual report
"The severity and duration of the 'Great Recession' of 2009 has meant that it will take us a little longer to reach these goals, but they appear no less achievable to us," the company said in its latest annual report.
A joint message to shareholders from chairman David Thomson and chief executive Tom Glocer said that despite the most challenging economic conditions they had seen in their business careers the company delivered resilient operating and financial performance in 2009. "We would characterise our results as being excellent on a relative basis and acceptable, but far short of what we believe Thomson Reuters has the potential to achieve, on an absolute basis."
They said they were very proud that while they had worked hard to reduce costs and realise savings through the integration of the acquired Reuters businesses, they had been able to continue and, in fact, increase investment in strategic new product platforms and in the international expansion of the business. “We are well ahead of plan in the integration of Reuters, and by year-end 2009 we had achieved combined run-rate savings of $1.1 billion from our integration and legacy savings programs. We now expect to achieve some 2.5 times greater savings from the Reuters integration ($1.2 billion) than originally forecast."
The Reuters integration had also continued to outpace expectations in terms of bringing new content, technology and services to customers, combining the best elements of the cultures of the legacy organisations, and providing new opportunities for Thomson Reuters’ 55,000 employees.
This year, Thomson Reuters could continue and accelerate the process of taking its businesses global – especially to tap higher growth rates in rapidly developing economies, and add other market sectors where professionals need its special combination of must-have content and technology to do their jobs.
"In 2010, we are following both of these paths to restart growth in our businesses that have been hardest hit by the global recession and accelerate growth in our units that have continued to grow right through the crisis…
"Over the longer term, we believe that our business can achieve mid-to-high single digit revenue growth rates, operating profit margins in the mid-20% range, and free cash flow in excess of $3 billion. The severity and duration of the 'Great Recession' of 2009 has meant that it will take us a little longer to reach these goals, but they appear no less achievable to us."
The report is in a new multimedia format – an online mix of video, text, pictures and animated graphics. "Going digital has made us a much greener company," Glocer said in a video message. "No trees were chopped down in the making of this annual report, unless fossil fuel was consumed in delivering it to you."
Thomson Reuters shareholders annual general meeting is to be held in Toronto on 14 May.
● CLICK to view Thomson Reuters 2009 annual report
Thomson Reuters seeks Pentagon meeting over slayings
Tuesday 06 April 2010
Namir Noor-Eldeen, photographer, and Saeed Chmagh, driver, died in a burst of cannon fire from a US Army Apache attack helicopter over Baghdad on 12 July 2007.
A classified military video recording of the killings as seen through the helicopter gunsight was released on Monday by the website WikiLeaks, which said it obtained the encrypted footage from military whistleblowers. The Pentagon confirmed its authenticity. WikiLeaks called it a case of “collateral murder”.
The video shows a US Army Apache repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included Noor-Eldeen, 22, and Chmagh, 40, and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men. None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the US Defence Department’s initial cover story.
Schlesinger told staff there was no better evidence of the dangers each and every journalist in a war zone faces at any time.
"We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the men and women of Reuters news who put themselves on the front line to tell the story; we mourn and remember each of our colleagues who has died – our books of remembrance that we keep in our main offices are grim reminders of the sacrifices too many have made over the many decades and many conflicts."
It is impossible to watch and listen to the video dispassionately, Schlesinger said. "I struggle with my emotions the way I’m sure many of you struggle as well," he added.
"I believe that we as an organization and I as an individual must fight for journalists’ safety. I will continue to campaign for better training for the military – to help as much as possible to teach the difference in form between a camera and an rpg or between a tripod and a weapon. I will continue to press for thorough and objective investigations. I will continue to insist that governments the world over recognize the rights of journalists to do their jobs. I will continue to ensure that our rules and operating procedures are the safest in the industry.
"In this particular case, Tom Glocer and I want to meet with the Pentagon to press the need to learn lessons from this tragedy.
"These stories are not easy for us to report or to be involved in. They test our commitment to viewing events and actions objectively.
"What matters in the end is not how we as colleagues and friends feel; what matters is the wider public debate that our stories and this video provoke."
● Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh Memorial
● Staff tributes
● Namir Noor-Eldeen tribute | SLIDESHOW
Video released showing US Army's killing of Reuters news staff
Monday 05 April 2010
The classified military video depicting the killings on 12 July 2007 was released by the website WikiLeaks, which called it a case of “collateral murder”. It said it obtained the video as well as supporting documents from military whistleblowers.
Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, unveiled the video at the National Press Club. He said the crew of the attack helicopter approached its job as if it were a video game, not something involving human lives. Their desire was simply to kill, he said. "Their desire was to get high scores on that computer game."
Video of the incident from two Apaches and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in Baghdad on 25 July 2007 in an off-the-record briefing. Reuters had been seeking release of the video, shot from a helicopter gun-sight, through the US Freedom of Information Act. After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own rules of engagement.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how two young children were wounded.
The video shows a US Army Apache repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, pictured, both Iraqi, and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men. None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon's initial cover story. They were milling about on a street corner.
Crew members can be heard celebrating their kills. "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30 mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies in the street. A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: "Come on, let us shoot!" Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses. And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one crewman can be heard saying: "Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle."
The New York Times reported the military's official cover story as follows:
The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed. "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.
Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement after the slayings: “Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh’s outstanding contribution to reporting on the unfolding events in Iraq has been vital. They stand alongside other colleagues in Reuters who have died doing a job that they believe in.”
David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said in a statement today: “The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular. The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result."
● SOURCE Collateral Murder | Reuters | The New York Times
● Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh Memorial
Tom Glocer: it's not just about money
Wednesday 31 March 2010
“We want incredible, high-performing, successful people but within the boundaries where the company matters more than I. There'll be another chief executive. There've been nine before me at Reuters and, if you think in longer terms, it puts a bit of perspective just on how bright is your candle power,” the CEO said in a radio broadcast.
“It's not just about money, but there is a market out there for talent. People are more aware of it than they think. To pretend that it's no issue at all and that people will just stay for the joy of it, I think, ultimately, is insulting but, conversely, if you believe you can bribe people to stay in a hostile environment or money's the only thing that motivates them, all of the research, all of my experience, shows differently. In fact what the best research show is that the single highest correlating factor to retaining employees and job satisfaction is: my manager understands me, cares about me, maybe knows the names of my children and is interested in my work and helps me achieve my goals. But don't try and pay me half the market rate, 'cos you'll just, you know, you'll diss me.”
Glocer described a cycle which he said was true for human beings, for companies and for governments where success and high achievement breeds pride, “that's OK, then breeds arrogance, not OK, then breeds complacency, egotistical behaviour, and then the downfall, and you see that cycle over and over again.
“And it is the rare individual and the rare company that can stay when it's at the top of the game. How paranoid are you? … You need to keep that humble questioning, otherwise eventually you'll just believe your own PR.”
Glocer was speaking in a panel discussion on BBC Radio 4 programme The Bottom Line, first broadcast on Sunday 28 March.
Interviewer Evan Davies also asked Glocer about the motivation for Thomson’s 2008 takeover of Reuters. Was it that Reuters suddenly found itself facing the most intense competition in the most lucrative bit of the market from players like Bloomberg? Was Reuters getting a bit desperate?
Glocer’s reply: “No, Reuters went through – I arrived in the UK and took on the job as chief executive in the summer of 2001 and the period 2001 to 2003 was the near-death experience for Reuters, and it was really difficult. You know, we had to do some very unpopular things. I had to do some things that I still find hard to this day. We let a lot of people go which substantially restructured the company, we sold a lot of units, but until the time we agreed to the Thomson acquisition we had come through that hole and were growing nicely again. The fit with Thomson was just so good, and their willingness to come at the right moment and pay a substantial premium for Reuters was there, that we jumped.”
Asked about the decline of newspapers, Glocer said: “At the margin, the traditional Reuters news agency selling to media customers is now about two per cent of the $13 billion annual revenues of the firm… It's very visible, we care about it a lot, it's still a profitable business but, you know, the shift in our revenues reflects where we find profitable opportunities, and yes, the newspaper world is going through a terrible, wrenching transformation. Part of it, I think, is because people can't wrap their brains around a pretty straightforward transition which is: newspapers don't have to be on physical wood paper pulp technology, right? It just so happens that the current processes lasted for so long no one can think about what does journalism mean in an iPad world, or son of iPad, and what will it look like. So, I think this is not the death knell of journalism, it is the death knell of people who insist that journalism has to be about printing on dead trees.”
● CLICK to view a video version of the radio broadcast (available only in the UK) | VIDEO
TR Q4 earnings down 68%, more revenue pain expected this year
Wednesday 24 February 2010
But the company also said on Wednesday net sales were positive from October to December, and it forecast a return to revenue growth in the second half of this year. The impact of net sales on revenue is delayed because of the company's subscription model.
"We've already seen the net sales picture improve significantly through the last quarter and into the first quarter of this year," chief executive Tom Glocer said in a Reuters interview.
The company earned $177 million in the three months from October to December, down from $560 million a year earlier. It forecast 2010 revenue to be flat or slightly lower, and underlying free cash flow to be slightly down from 2009 as it continues to invest in new products and platforms. Fourth quarter underlying profit fell 16 per cent to $661 million. Adjusted earnings per share slipped to 44 cents from 50 cents a year earlier, but this was a cent above the average Wall Street estimate.
For the year as a whole, revenue from ongoing businesses rose one per cent to $3.35 billion, slightly above the average analyst forecast of $3.32 billion. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, revenue fell three per cent.
"I am pleased with the resilient performance of the company in 2009,” Glocer said in a prepared statement. “Despite the worst global operating environment any of us has faced, Thomson Reuters was able to hold or improve on our prior-year results, with revenues comparable to 2008 and underlying operating margin and free cash flow up on the prior year. I am also pleased that our net sales performance improved significantly through the year, with the fourth quarter recording positive net sales for the company as a whole."
Glocer said he was confident 2009 was the bottom of the sales cycle. "I expect that we will return to revenue growth in the second half of 2010," he said, and 2010 would be the final year of heavy integration spending in the markets division.
Annualised savings from the merger between Thomson and Reuters reached $1.1 billion last year, $300 million more than the company estimated when it closed the deal in April 2008. The company raised its 2011 annualised savings target by $200 million to $1.6 billion. It said $1.2 billion of that would come from the savings of integrating the company, and the rest from older savings programmes.
The board approved a four cents increase in the annual dividend to $1.16 per share.
Thomson Reuters’ US shares have risen about nine per cent so far this year, closing at $35.06 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. After today’s results announcement the shares lost nearly four per cent of their value before closing down 1.57 per cent in New York and 1.83 per cent in Toronto.
● SOURCE Reuters | PR Newswire | Washington Post/The Associated Press
Tom Glocer says he's seen 'marked uptick' in sales, TR well placed for acquisitions
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Tom Glocer said on Wednesday Thomson Reuters saw a marked uptick in sales as it progressed through the end of 2009.
The CEO told Reuters Insider television that because of the company's subscription model it would take time for the weakness earlier in the year to work through the system but that it was now well placed.
Thomson Reuters was in a strong position to make acquisitions and to invest in its businesses and had opportunistically refinanced debt over the summer, he said. There was "a tonne" of good businesses coming onto the market.
Glocer is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said that at the WEF a year ago it was "near professional suicide" when he had expressed some optimism but now in the technology world in particular, businesses were cautiously beginning to invest.
● SOURCE Reuters
● Tom Glocer | VIDEO
The CEO told Reuters Insider television that because of the company's subscription model it would take time for the weakness earlier in the year to work through the system but that it was now well placed.
Thomson Reuters was in a strong position to make acquisitions and to invest in its businesses and had opportunistically refinanced debt over the summer, he said. There was "a tonne" of good businesses coming onto the market.
Glocer is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said that at the WEF a year ago it was "near professional suicide" when he had expressed some optimism but now in the technology world in particular, businesses were cautiously beginning to invest.
● Tom Glocer | VIDEO
Tom Glocer upbeat at close of 'a particularly memorable year'
Tuesday 22 December 2009
“This has been a year of unprecedented challenge and equally unprecedented achievement for Thomson Reuters,” the chief executive told the group’s 50,000 staff on Tuesday.
“Over the past 15 months, the world came frighteningly close to economic collapse. But even though all signs in the global economy and in our business suggest the worst is behind us, nobody knows for sure what shape the economic recovery will take.
“To cope with this economic uncertainty, we are building on our company's strong 2009 performance by continuing to invest in the key projects that will help us restart growth and deliver long-term value to our stakeholders. I feel renewed confidence in our ability to do this. I have just returned from visiting many of our offices and customers in China, the UAE, India and Japan, and at each stop I found new growth opportunities and met with employees whose talent and passion for the business convinced me that we will capture those opportunities. Even in areas where growth has slowed or stopped for the moment, we have opportunities to take share and the people who can make it happen.
“I’ll have more to say on this as the new year begins. But now, as we reach the end of a particularly memorable year, I just want to take a moment to say thanks. Your dedication, hard work and skill drove great progress on our 2009 priorities.”
Glocer listed these as
● “Integration – thanks to an amazing performance in Markets, we're running ahead of target and schedule on the Reuters integration program
● “Globalization – we've taken bold steps to expand our position in the world's fastest growing markets such as building out our Westlaw business internationally and expanding our Scientific markets
● “Whole greater than the sum of its parts – there have been many successes here including the growing impact of the Thomson Reuters brand, which entered the top 40 of the world's most valuable brands this year, and the development of best-in-class product platforms such as Cobalt, Utah and the Global Tax Workstation.
“You accomplished all this in the face of the toughest economic conditions any of us have ever experienced.
Year's end is also an appropriate time to reflect on all that you have done to benefit our communities. As I see it, being a world-class company isn't just about hitting our numbers, important though that is. It's also about the values we uphold and what we stand for in the wider world. On that front, I feel incredibly fortunate to work for this company.”
● SOURCE Reuters
World in transition to Asia's century says Tom Glocer
Tuesday 22 December 2009
The world is living through the transition from America's century to Asia's says Tom Glocer, but Thomson Reuters’ chief executive remains optimistic about the United States.
"…it does feel to me as if we are living through the transition from America’s century (20th) to Asia’s century (21st). (Europe’s century was obviously the 19th),” he writes in his latest blog posting. “Despite all our challenges, I remain optimistic about the United States. Sure we need to begin living within our means and not treating the roofs over heads as a revolving credit facility, but the productive and innovative capacity of the country is still great and Asia’s rise need not be a zero sum game. Nonetheless, America’s reign as the world’s only superpower will have been short-lived."
He added: “Don’t count out the Gulf. While Dubai’s current problems are well known, it would be wrong to conclude that Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain are all one large palm-shaped sand bar stretching into the sea. Anyone for the 22nd being Africa’s century with the Gulf its major trading hub?"
In India, Glocer told an interviewer that Thomson Reuters is moving more international jobs to India and other Asian nations as the developed world is still emerging from the worst recession after the credit crisis.
Glocer wrote his blog on the long way home to New York from a 12-day end-of-year trip to Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. "While Asia and the Gulf are regular destinations for me, I seldom try to cover this much ground in such little time,” he noted. “Fun for the aging body it is not."
● Tom Glocer’s blog
"…it does feel to me as if we are living through the transition from America’s century (20th) to Asia’s century (21st). (Europe’s century was obviously the 19th),” he writes in his latest blog posting. “Despite all our challenges, I remain optimistic about the United States. Sure we need to begin living within our means and not treating the roofs over heads as a revolving credit facility, but the productive and innovative capacity of the country is still great and Asia’s rise need not be a zero sum game. Nonetheless, America’s reign as the world’s only superpower will have been short-lived."
He added: “Don’t count out the Gulf. While Dubai’s current problems are well known, it would be wrong to conclude that Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain are all one large palm-shaped sand bar stretching into the sea. Anyone for the 22nd being Africa’s century with the Gulf its major trading hub?"
In India, Glocer told an interviewer that Thomson Reuters is moving more international jobs to India and other Asian nations as the developed world is still emerging from the worst recession after the credit crisis.
Glocer wrote his blog on the long way home to New York from a 12-day end-of-year trip to Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. "While Asia and the Gulf are regular destinations for me, I seldom try to cover this much ground in such little time,” he noted. “Fun for the aging body it is not."
● Tom Glocer’s blog
Thomson Reuters moving more international jobs to Asia - Tom Glocer
Sunday 13 December 2009
Thomson Reuters is moving more jobs to India and other Asian nations as the developed world is still emerging from the worst recession after the credit crisis, says Tom Glocer.
"We are moving more international jobs to the region," the chief executive said.
"HSBC and Standard Chartered have done much better than the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, in part, because of their presence in the Asian markets and developing markets," he said in an interview.
"We have more people in India than in any other country, except the US," Glocer told The Economic Times of India.
"Legal business is building up and we have an important role to play with partners in the development of the Indian judicial system," he said.
The head of Thomson Reuters' investment advisory and wealth management business, Eric Frank, is relocating to Hong Kong from New York to run the wealth management business from Asia because "the opportunities are so significant" Glocer said.
"It is a good period for stronger institutions," Glocer said. "That doesn't mean that any of them are going to go on a spending spree. But it does overall help, if the financial system improves."
Glocer said the global economic recovery would be uneven. He pointed to the theory of Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of advertising agency WPP, who believes recovery in Europe will be L-shaped, in the U.S. it will be U-shaped – low and slow – while in countries such as China and India it will be V-shaped, which means rapid recovery.
"I don't want to pretend that all are bouncing back," Glocer added. "I also think that the darkest hour before the dawn is not the right time to predict the colours of the next 48 hours.”
● SOURCE Trading Markets / The Economic Times
"We are moving more international jobs to the region," the chief executive said.
"HSBC and Standard Chartered have done much better than the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, in part, because of their presence in the Asian markets and developing markets," he said in an interview.
"We have more people in India than in any other country, except the US," Glocer told The Economic Times of India.
"Legal business is building up and we have an important role to play with partners in the development of the Indian judicial system," he said.
The head of Thomson Reuters' investment advisory and wealth management business, Eric Frank, is relocating to Hong Kong from New York to run the wealth management business from Asia because "the opportunities are so significant" Glocer said.
"It is a good period for stronger institutions," Glocer said. "That doesn't mean that any of them are going to go on a spending spree. But it does overall help, if the financial system improves."
Glocer said the global economic recovery would be uneven. He pointed to the theory of Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of advertising agency WPP, who believes recovery in Europe will be L-shaped, in the U.S. it will be U-shaped – low and slow – while in countries such as China and India it will be V-shaped, which means rapid recovery.
"I don't want to pretend that all are bouncing back," Glocer added. "I also think that the darkest hour before the dawn is not the right time to predict the colours of the next 48 hours.”
● SOURCE Trading Markets / The Economic Times
Thomson Reuters Foundation appoints new chairman
Wednesday 18 November 2009
David Binet, executive vice president of the Thomson family’s investment vehicle Woodbridge, has been appointed chairman of Thomson Reuters Foundation. He takes over immediately.
The appointment was made by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Binet is a trustee. Woodbridge is the majority shareholder in Thomson Reuters.
Binet succeeds Dick Harrington, former chief executive officer of The Thomson Corporation, who has been chairman of the Foundation since Thomson completed its takeover of Reuters in April 2008.
“David’s experience as a trustee, and his deep background in journalism, law and business make him uniquely qualified to lead the Foundation,” said Tom Glocer, chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters. “Under David’s guidance, the Foundation can expand the impact and influence of its good work around the world.” He added: “I want to thank Dick Harrington for his many contributions as chairman, seeing the organization through the integration and putting in place the cornerstones on which the new Foundation will be built.”
Binet is a former reporter and editor with The Canadian Press. Prior to joining Woodbridge in 1999 he was a partner in the Canadian law firm Torys. He is also a member of the board of directors of CTVglobemedia, which owns Canada's largest television network, CTV, a number of specialty channels and 34 radio stations, as well as The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper.
“The Foundation has enormous potential to grow beyond its current scope and truly represent the breadth and depth of Thomson Reuters globally,” Binet said. “I am committed to unlocking that potential, building on the important initiatives under way and exploring new ways in which the Foundation can make a difference in the world.”
Monique Villa, chief executive officer of the Foundation, said: “I am delighted that David has agreed to chair the Board of Trustees of the Foundation. David has been actively involved in helping us strengthen and expand a world-class corporate foundation. His appointment comes at a time when we are preparing to launch two important programs -- to give broader access to the rule of law and to help affected populations when disaster strikes. His leadership, and his experience as a journalist and a lawyer, will be invaluable in this next exciting phase of the Thomson Reuters Foundation."
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters Foundation
The appointment was made by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Binet is a trustee. Woodbridge is the majority shareholder in Thomson Reuters.
Binet succeeds Dick Harrington, former chief executive officer of The Thomson Corporation, who has been chairman of the Foundation since Thomson completed its takeover of Reuters in April 2008.
“David’s experience as a trustee, and his deep background in journalism, law and business make him uniquely qualified to lead the Foundation,” said Tom Glocer, chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters. “Under David’s guidance, the Foundation can expand the impact and influence of its good work around the world.” He added: “I want to thank Dick Harrington for his many contributions as chairman, seeing the organization through the integration and putting in place the cornerstones on which the new Foundation will be built.”
Binet is a former reporter and editor with The Canadian Press. Prior to joining Woodbridge in 1999 he was a partner in the Canadian law firm Torys. He is also a member of the board of directors of CTVglobemedia, which owns Canada's largest television network, CTV, a number of specialty channels and 34 radio stations, as well as The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper.
“The Foundation has enormous potential to grow beyond its current scope and truly represent the breadth and depth of Thomson Reuters globally,” Binet said. “I am committed to unlocking that potential, building on the important initiatives under way and exploring new ways in which the Foundation can make a difference in the world.”
Monique Villa, chief executive officer of the Foundation, said: “I am delighted that David has agreed to chair the Board of Trustees of the Foundation. David has been actively involved in helping us strengthen and expand a world-class corporate foundation. His appointment comes at a time when we are preparing to launch two important programs -- to give broader access to the rule of law and to help affected populations when disaster strikes. His leadership, and his experience as a journalist and a lawyer, will be invaluable in this next exciting phase of the Thomson Reuters Foundation."
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thomson Reuters almost back to pre-Lehman bankruptcy levels - Tom Glocer
Monday 16 November 2009
Thomson Reuters has been hurt by the demise of several Wall Steet firms but was able to pick up business from acquirers such as Barclays and Nomura and is almost back to pre-Lehman Brothers bankruptcy levels, Tom Glocer said on Monday.
"We've gotten the business back much faster than I expected," the chief executive said on the sidelines of the WSJ CEO Council in New York.
The financial business, however, continues to be slow. He pointed to health care, science and tax and accounting services as a growth area.
Glocer said the United States should see a slow climb back to employment but some jobs aren't coming back because they have been eliminated, or sent overseas, or replaced by technology.
Thomson Reuters has continued to selectively hire and continues to do so, he said. The company did not make any major job cuts and does not foresee any. Instead, he said it has slowed the pace of hiring to contain operating costs.
● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal / Dow Jones Newswires
"We've gotten the business back much faster than I expected," the chief executive said on the sidelines of the WSJ CEO Council in New York.
The financial business, however, continues to be slow. He pointed to health care, science and tax and accounting services as a growth area.
Glocer said the United States should see a slow climb back to employment but some jobs aren't coming back because they have been eliminated, or sent overseas, or replaced by technology.
Thomson Reuters has continued to selectively hire and continues to do so, he said. The company did not make any major job cuts and does not foresee any. Instead, he said it has slowed the pace of hiring to contain operating costs.
● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal / Dow Jones Newswires
No interest in buying print media says Tom Glocer
Friday 06 November 2009
The question was put to the chief executive by correspondent Robert MacMillan, pictured, who covers Thomson Reuters as part of his media beat.
“Covering Thomson Reuters Corp for almost two years has taught me that people like to cast my company in a recurring role in media deal parlor games,” he writes in a Reuters blog. “Now that the company’s arch-rival Bloomberg LP will buy BusinessWeek magazine from McGraw-Hill, lots of my pals in the media world are wondering: Will Thomson Reuters buy a mainstream news or business news magazine? Or newspaper? Why not Forbes? Why not the Financial Times?
“Keep in mind that Thomson Reuters likes to remind people when they ask these questions that Thomson Corp, before buying Reuters, got out of its Canadian newspaper empire for a reason.
“I asked our chief executive, Tom Glocer, a question along these lines on a Thursday phone call he had with reporters to discuss the company’s third-quarter financial results."
Glocer's reply: “Thomson did a remarkable job, far earlier than any other company I know, of seeing what was coming and transitioning their business out of print for the most part… I don’t see any particular time or reason at this juncture why we should go the other way.”
MacMillan returned to the theme when he interviewed Glocer later in the day and used the Financial Times as an example. He got a similarly dismissive response from the CEO.
What about other properties, MacMillan enquired.
"Is it impossible that somewhere in the world that we'd take a print property and move it electronic? No, but we're not looking to go out and buy consumer print publications. That’s not what we think our business is,” Glocer replied.
Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, said Thomson Reuters was a company where “what we shy away from are advertising-based models. We charge for content, we charge for information and news”.
What about reuters.com, an ad-supported site that runs Reuters news? Glocer said: “I would argue that the overwhelming amount of our news is behind the firewall in the sense that you only get it as part of a product that you pay for. It’s great that we have it. I’m very proud of reuters.com. I use it on weekends and evenings when I’m not in front of my bigger service, my subscription service.”
● SOURCE Reuters
Thomson Reuters Q3 profit tumbles in 'challenging environment'
Thursday 05 November 2009
The group earned $162 million, or 19 cents per share, in the three months ended 30 September – down from $404 million or 49 cents per share a year earlier. Underlying operating profit rose three per cent to $711 million in the third quarter, from $690 million a year ago.
CEO Tom Glocer told investment analysts it was a challenging environment.
"Despite difficult market conditions, our businesses delivered solid results in the third quarter," he said. "Our Tax & Accounting and Healthcare & Science businesses continued to perform very strongly, and sales of subscription products in our Markets and Legal units improved in Q3 over what we expect were their bottom in Q2. While the weak year-to-date net sales experienced in recent quarters are now flowing through into revenues, we expect this dip to be shallow and limited to the next few quarters.
"Our ongoing focus on the Reuters integration and close cost management across the company has enabled us to continue to grow underlying operating profit. While we would welcome a quick return to revenue growth, we understand how to operate in challenging markets and we are confident that we are outperforming the competition," Glocer said.
Adjusted earnings from continuing operations slipped to 43 cents per share from 47 cents a year ago, beating average analyst forecasts of 40 cents per share.
Thomson Reuters said its revenue slipped four per cent to $3.22 billion, partly because of unfavourable foreign exchange rates.
"While the weak year-to-date net sales experienced in recent quarters are now flowing through into revenues, we expect this dip to be shallow and limited to the next few quarters," Glocer said.
Revenue from ongoing businesses, excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, fell two per cent to $3.21 billion. The average analyst forecast was $3.23 billion.
In the markets division, revenue from the media operation including Reuters news agency fell by 14 per cent to $90 million amid consolidation among traditional media outlets such as newspapers.
Overall corporate expenses tripled from a year earlier to $163 million in the third quarter, due in part to integration costs.
Thomson Reuters re-affirmed its previous guidance: it expects revenue to grow this year and underlying operating profit margin and free cash flow to be comparable to 2008.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Post
Tom Glocer collects transatlantic business award
Thursday 05 November 2009
The British Ambassador to the United States, Nigel Sheinwald, presented the award which is handed out each year by BritishAmerican Business. BABI is dedicated to helping companies connect and build their business on both sides of the Atlantic. Glocer is a member of its international advisory board.
He told guests at a dinner at the Pierre Hotel on Tuesday 3 November: “Thomson Reuters spans the Atlantic and then the world. From time to time (especially in lean times) much is made of the rivalry between New York and London as great financial centers. However, it has always seemed to me that the qualities we share in common and the links that bind us are stronger than our differences”.
The two cities provide “a most fertile ground for a professional information company like Thomson Reuters to thrive in”, he added. “I accept this award on behalf of all my colleagues at Thomson Reuters in the hope and belief that we shall remain intertwined in the success of London and New York for many years to come”.
Deputy chairman Niall FitzGerald is a past recipient of the award.
● SOURCE Reuters | BABI
Thomson Reuters 'working as strategic partner on BusinessWeek bid'
Wednesday 07 October 2009
“Thomson Reuters has publicly been saying that it has no interest in bidding for BusinessWeek, ever since the news that it was on the block came out. And that was true, until Bloomberg and later ZelnickMedia came into the picture: the multimedia business media giant is working as a strategic partner in the ZelnickMedia bid for BusinessWeek, we have learned from multiple sources. It will not contribute any cash to the deal, if successful, but presumably will have some sort of a content and distribution arrangement,” it reported.
“Also, with Zelnick’s bid, we have also learned that there may be other monetary investors involved, though Zelnick surely is the lead on this. As has been reported previously, Zelnick is being advised by former WSJ publisher and Dow Jones exec Gordon Crovitz, who is not likely to take any operating role if the bid is successful.
As for the reasons Thomson Reuters got interested again, one source said it is because of Bloomberg: it wants to keep a bitter rival from getting a more consumer-facing media brand. Both Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters have been trying to diversify with their consumer efforts, as has been well documented.”
PaidContent said another source says the final decision "is not as imminent as it is being made out in press, which probably means there’s some due diligence left on who to choose between the two – unless some last-second bid also comes in." Reuters declined comment on “market rumor or speculation".
The website added: “Interestingly, Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer recently penned a column for BW the mag, on its recent issue about the role of optimism in business. And he mentioned on his blog that among the reasons he did the post for the mag: 'BusinessWeek itself has been the subject of a number of swipes in other publications ever since rumors of its purported sale began to leak, and I was happy to support Steve Adler and his very professional team at BW. The fact that the economic model for business news has shifted rapidly under the feet of BW, Forbes and Fortune should not now be seen to detract from the quality of the work of their journalists.'”
● SOURCE PaidContent
● Tom Glocer’s blog
● BusinessWeek
No inflation-linked increase for ex-Reuters UK pensioners
Monday 07 September 2009
Tom Glocer says Thomson Reuters cannot provide an inflation-linked pension increase to its former Reuters UK pensioners this year.
In a letter to the Pension Review Group, Thomson Reuters' CEO writes, "We do not believe we can unilaterally provide a discretionary increase at this time for the participants in the two former Reuters pension plans."
He was responding to a letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean which pointed out that senior company executives had recently had financial rewards worth many millions.
"It is hard to believe that the Company cannot afford a modest increase to the pension funds to ensure Reuters pensioners are fairly compensated, particularly in view of the financial performance of Thomson Reuters over the last year and predictions for 2009," Dean said.
Glocer replied "... To begin by addressing your request directly, we do not believe we can unilaterally provide a discretionary increase at this time for the participants in the two former Reuters pension plans (the Plans). We explain this position in the remainder of this letter.
"As you are aware, the Reuters Pension Fund (RPF), the larger of the two legacy Reuters Plans, is an unusual and very old hybrid plan which combines elements of both defined contribution and defined benefit plans. In fact, during the 100 year plus history of the RPF, Reuters never took a contribution holiday despite years of pension surpluses as we followed the practice that company contributions were fixed. Consistent with this position, it was the Plan Trustees and not management of the company that held the power to determine investment strategy, surplus or deficit status and, importantly, how to provide inflationary increases, if any, to participants.
"After a series of revisions to pension laws, a thorough review of the unusual Reuters Plans and the appearance of a deficit in the Plans, the company and the Plan Trustees entered into a Funding Agreement in 2006 pursuant to which the company made a £153m contribution to the RPF, and an undertaking to contribute an additional £40m. This served to cover Plan deficits, and thereby permit the Trustees to consider whether to make inflationary increases. The Trustees, using their discretion under the Plans and the 2006 Funding Agreement, did, in fact, grant increases of 2.7% in 2006, 3.6% in 2007 and 3.9% in 2008. In addition, consistent with the company's commitment to the retirement security of its former employees, Thomson Reuters entered into a parent company guarantee of Reuters obligations under the Plans soon after the completion of the Reuters acquisition, and fulfilled Reuters commitment to contribute another £40m to the RPF.
"With respect to the manner in which discretionary increases are to be considered, the Plans and the 2006 Funding Agreement provide that following the close of each year, the scheme actuary is to perform a funding review to assess whether there was a surplus or deficit at the close of such year. If a surplus is determined to exist, the Trustees are empowered to use up to 40% of such surplus to provide a discretionary increase on Relevant Pensions (as defined), subject to a maximum of the change in RPI in the year to the preceding September, capped at 5%. This mechanism was put in place as it was understood between the parties that the primary objective should be to secure members' benefits and that the granting of any discretionary increase should not be materially detrimental to that primary objective.
"It should thus be clear that the ability to authorize any inflationary increase is dependent on the investment performance of the Plans which is managed by the Trustees of the Plans, and not the company. As 2008 was an "anno horribilis" for the investment community, it is not surprising that the Plan Trustees have determined that no inflationary increase is possible at this time.
"We are committed to working with the Trustees of all the company's plans to find solutions which honor the contributions made by generations of Reuters and Thomson employees in building the current company. While Thomson Reuters is prepared to consider alternative arrangements with the Trustees, these discussions must await the expiration of the current 2006 Funding Agreement."
Following is the full text of the PRG's letter to Glocer:
Dear Mr Glocer
I am writing to you as Chairman of the Pension Review Group (PRG) which as you are aware, has been campaigning for a number of years to restore the annual inflation-linked pension increases for pensioners of the UK Reuters Pension Fund and Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme.
We are delighted to see that Thomson Reuters has achieved such successful financial results for 2008, and that the outlook for this year is positive. However, for Reuters pensioners the prospect for 2009 is somewhat gloomy as, in view of the current global financial problems, we do not anticipate an increase to our pensions this year. This will mean that since 2002, the overall value of our pensions will have fallen by 13%, as measured by the increase in the Retail Prices Index.
The agreement between the Trustees and the Company for providing discretionary increases depends on there being a funding surplus, and if the financial markets continue to perform at their current level, the likelihood of future pension increases would seem remote, so our pensions will suffer an even greater loss in value. This is a serious concern for the pensioners we represent.
By contrast, we understand that pensioners who are members of the Defined Benefit Scheme in Thomson, receive a guaranteed annual increase and are not subject to the uncertainties of a funding agreement formula.
Thomson Reuters is still the only FTSE 100 company that fails to pay an annual index-linked increase to some of its pensioners who are members of a defined benefit scheme. The principle of an annual inflationary increase applies, in law, to pensions earned since 1997 and to all UK state pensions. Surely a company of this stature and wealth should not be uniquely out of step in applying this principle, and thereby penalising the very people who were instrumental in building the success of Reuters and are now most vulnerable?
Following the merger of Thomson and Reuters, the companies were involved in an exercise to equalise the benefits of the different groups of employees. We believe it is only fair that this principle of equity should be applied to pensioners.
We note that senior executives at Thomson Reuters have recently been awarded significant financial rewards worth many millions, which include compensation for former Reuters staff to recognise differences in company pension benefits. It is hard to believe that the Company cannot afford a modest increase to the pension funds to ensure Reuters pensioners are fairly compensated, particularly in view of the financial performance of Thomson Reuters over the last year and predictions for 2009.
We would ask that the Company review its position regarding inflationary increases for Reuters pensioners, and consider injecting sufficient money into the funds to enable the payment of such increases on a yearly basis.
The situation for pensioners is increasingly difficult as they can no longer rely on their savings to mitigate the effects of a decrease in the value of their pensions, so they are doubly penalised. The assurance of an annual inflationary increase, instead of the yearly uncertainty that a discretionary award brings, would go a long way to protecting us from a permanent decline in real incomes.
I hope you will give our request serious consideration and look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Angela Dean
Chairman, Pensions Review Group
● Reuters Pension Fund members are reminded to vote by 14 September in the election for an RPF member-nominated Trustee. You can vote by post or online. The poll closes at 2:00 pm BST on that date so don't leave it until the last minute!
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
In a letter to the Pension Review Group, Thomson Reuters' CEO writes, "We do not believe we can unilaterally provide a discretionary increase at this time for the participants in the two former Reuters pension plans."
He was responding to a letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean which pointed out that senior company executives had recently had financial rewards worth many millions.
"It is hard to believe that the Company cannot afford a modest increase to the pension funds to ensure Reuters pensioners are fairly compensated, particularly in view of the financial performance of Thomson Reuters over the last year and predictions for 2009," Dean said.
Glocer replied "... To begin by addressing your request directly, we do not believe we can unilaterally provide a discretionary increase at this time for the participants in the two former Reuters pension plans (the Plans). We explain this position in the remainder of this letter.
"As you are aware, the Reuters Pension Fund (RPF), the larger of the two legacy Reuters Plans, is an unusual and very old hybrid plan which combines elements of both defined contribution and defined benefit plans. In fact, during the 100 year plus history of the RPF, Reuters never took a contribution holiday despite years of pension surpluses as we followed the practice that company contributions were fixed. Consistent with this position, it was the Plan Trustees and not management of the company that held the power to determine investment strategy, surplus or deficit status and, importantly, how to provide inflationary increases, if any, to participants.
"After a series of revisions to pension laws, a thorough review of the unusual Reuters Plans and the appearance of a deficit in the Plans, the company and the Plan Trustees entered into a Funding Agreement in 2006 pursuant to which the company made a £153m contribution to the RPF, and an undertaking to contribute an additional £40m. This served to cover Plan deficits, and thereby permit the Trustees to consider whether to make inflationary increases. The Trustees, using their discretion under the Plans and the 2006 Funding Agreement, did, in fact, grant increases of 2.7% in 2006, 3.6% in 2007 and 3.9% in 2008. In addition, consistent with the company's commitment to the retirement security of its former employees, Thomson Reuters entered into a parent company guarantee of Reuters obligations under the Plans soon after the completion of the Reuters acquisition, and fulfilled Reuters commitment to contribute another £40m to the RPF.
"With respect to the manner in which discretionary increases are to be considered, the Plans and the 2006 Funding Agreement provide that following the close of each year, the scheme actuary is to perform a funding review to assess whether there was a surplus or deficit at the close of such year. If a surplus is determined to exist, the Trustees are empowered to use up to 40% of such surplus to provide a discretionary increase on Relevant Pensions (as defined), subject to a maximum of the change in RPI in the year to the preceding September, capped at 5%. This mechanism was put in place as it was understood between the parties that the primary objective should be to secure members' benefits and that the granting of any discretionary increase should not be materially detrimental to that primary objective.
"It should thus be clear that the ability to authorize any inflationary increase is dependent on the investment performance of the Plans which is managed by the Trustees of the Plans, and not the company. As 2008 was an "anno horribilis" for the investment community, it is not surprising that the Plan Trustees have determined that no inflationary increase is possible at this time.
"We are committed to working with the Trustees of all the company's plans to find solutions which honor the contributions made by generations of Reuters and Thomson employees in building the current company. While Thomson Reuters is prepared to consider alternative arrangements with the Trustees, these discussions must await the expiration of the current 2006 Funding Agreement."
Following is the full text of the PRG's letter to Glocer:
Dear Mr Glocer
I am writing to you as Chairman of the Pension Review Group (PRG) which as you are aware, has been campaigning for a number of years to restore the annual inflation-linked pension increases for pensioners of the UK Reuters Pension Fund and Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme.
We are delighted to see that Thomson Reuters has achieved such successful financial results for 2008, and that the outlook for this year is positive. However, for Reuters pensioners the prospect for 2009 is somewhat gloomy as, in view of the current global financial problems, we do not anticipate an increase to our pensions this year. This will mean that since 2002, the overall value of our pensions will have fallen by 13%, as measured by the increase in the Retail Prices Index.
The agreement between the Trustees and the Company for providing discretionary increases depends on there being a funding surplus, and if the financial markets continue to perform at their current level, the likelihood of future pension increases would seem remote, so our pensions will suffer an even greater loss in value. This is a serious concern for the pensioners we represent.
By contrast, we understand that pensioners who are members of the Defined Benefit Scheme in Thomson, receive a guaranteed annual increase and are not subject to the uncertainties of a funding agreement formula.
Thomson Reuters is still the only FTSE 100 company that fails to pay an annual index-linked increase to some of its pensioners who are members of a defined benefit scheme. The principle of an annual inflationary increase applies, in law, to pensions earned since 1997 and to all UK state pensions. Surely a company of this stature and wealth should not be uniquely out of step in applying this principle, and thereby penalising the very people who were instrumental in building the success of Reuters and are now most vulnerable?
Following the merger of Thomson and Reuters, the companies were involved in an exercise to equalise the benefits of the different groups of employees. We believe it is only fair that this principle of equity should be applied to pensioners.
We note that senior executives at Thomson Reuters have recently been awarded significant financial rewards worth many millions, which include compensation for former Reuters staff to recognise differences in company pension benefits. It is hard to believe that the Company cannot afford a modest increase to the pension funds to ensure Reuters pensioners are fairly compensated, particularly in view of the financial performance of Thomson Reuters over the last year and predictions for 2009.
We would ask that the Company review its position regarding inflationary increases for Reuters pensioners, and consider injecting sufficient money into the funds to enable the payment of such increases on a yearly basis.
The situation for pensioners is increasingly difficult as they can no longer rely on their savings to mitigate the effects of a decrease in the value of their pensions, so they are doubly penalised. The assurance of an annual inflationary increase, instead of the yearly uncertainty that a discretionary award brings, would go a long way to protecting us from a permanent decline in real incomes.
I hope you will give our request serious consideration and look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Angela Dean
Chairman, Pensions Review Group
● Reuters Pension Fund members are reminded to vote by 14 September in the election for an RPF member-nominated Trustee. You can vote by post or online. The poll closes at 2:00 pm BST on that date so don't leave it until the last minute!
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
Tom Glocer, £4 million to the good, house-hunting in New York
Saturday 15 August 2009
Tom Glocer, who pocketed £4 million after selling some of his Thomson Reuters shares near the top this week, plans to buy a new home in New York, the Financial Times reported.
The CEO, who relocated to his hometown from London last year, sold 200,000 shares at £20.11 – near their all-time high of £20.34 – on Tuesday.
The family kept an apartment in New York while Glocer lived in London as pre-merger Reuters CEO. They also own a lake house in Finland, where Glocer's Finnish wife Maarit grew up.
The FT, which has been reading Glocer's blog, says it's a cut above the usual CEO effort. "Mr Glocer writes about everything from Obama to markets, the future of newspapers, technology (he loves Facebook), books (he reads Roth to Dostoevsky to Houellebecq), music (The Grateful Dead), and 'soccer vs footie'. He started his blog, he says, after deciding that he could see what it was like himself, or pay a pricey consultant to write him a report on it."
● SOURCE Financial Times | Tom Glocer’s Blog
The CEO, who relocated to his hometown from London last year, sold 200,000 shares at £20.11 – near their all-time high of £20.34 – on Tuesday.
The family kept an apartment in New York while Glocer lived in London as pre-merger Reuters CEO. They also own a lake house in Finland, where Glocer's Finnish wife Maarit grew up.
The FT, which has been reading Glocer's blog, says it's a cut above the usual CEO effort. "Mr Glocer writes about everything from Obama to markets, the future of newspapers, technology (he loves Facebook), books (he reads Roth to Dostoevsky to Houellebecq), music (The Grateful Dead), and 'soccer vs footie'. He started his blog, he says, after deciding that he could see what it was like himself, or pay a pricey consultant to write him a report on it."
● SOURCE Financial Times | Tom Glocer’s Blog
Tom Glocer and Devin Wenig unload shares
Friday 14 August 2009
Glocer, chief executive, and Wenig, CEO of the markets division, both made the sale to rebalance their portfolios. Glocer sold 200,000 shares at £20.11 and now holds about 1.34 million shares. Wenig sold 100,000 shares at £19.78 and now owns about 650,000. Both men joined Reuters in 1993.
"After second quarter results that were significantly better than expected, investors may be concerned that management are calling a near-term peak to the share price," Phillip Huang, UBS analyst, said in a note.
"Thomson Reuters merits a premium based on the results it has delivered, but an end to the cyclical market rally, particularly in financials, could lead to profit taking in Thomson and lead to the relative premium contracting," he said.
The company currently trades on a 16x multiple of its 2010 expected earnings per share, compared with 10x multiples in its peers.
UBS maintains a "sell" rating on Thomson Reuters with a $23.50 target price.
● SOURCE National Post
Shareholders vote to quit London Stock Exchange
Friday 07 August 2009
Twenty-five years after Reuters floated on the London Stock Exchange, Thomson Reuters shareholders voted on Friday to delist, distancing Reuters further from its British roots.
The vote at an extraordinary general meeting in London was 97.4 per cent in favour of quitting the LSE. At a simultaneous EGM in Toronto the figure was 99.6 per cent. Fewer than 100 shareholders attended the London meeting, with a similar number in Toronto.
The Canadian vote was decided by Thomson's family holding company, Woodbridge, which owns about two-thirds of the outstanding shares in Thomson Reuters Corp and had already committed to vote in favour of the move.
It will also delist from NASDAQ, remaining on the main New York and Toronto exchanges.
The delistings are expected to take place on 10 September, subject to UK court approval.
Shareholders in Thomson Reuters PLC are entitled to receive one Thomson Reuters Corp share for every PLC share they hold, while holders of American Depository Shares will receive six Thomson Reuters Corp shares per ADS.
Thomson Reuters, formed in 2008 when Canadian data publisher Thomson bought Reuters, has said it wants to simplify its capital structure and eliminate the persistent discount at which the London shares have traded to the Canadian shares.
The UK shares have traded at a discount to the Canadian shares since the April 2008 merger. The gap has narrowed to 2 per cent from 13.6 per cent before the company announced its plan in June to delist the London shares.
"I expect that a more straightforward capital structure will ensure that the focus of investors will remain firmly on the company itself and not on its capital structure," chief executive Tom Glocer told shareholders in London.
Not all shareholders agreed with the decision. "This country is a link to Europe. It looks like everything is going to shift to America and I'm a bit nervous about that," Allan Ferguson, who holds about 686 Thomson Reuters shares, told the London meeting. "I feel that we're just going to be another outpost."
Glocer has moved his base to New York from London, which remains the company's second-biggest base. Thomson Reuters made 58 per cent of its revenue in the Americas, 32 per cent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 10 per cent in Asia last year.
Paul Julius Reuter opened his news and stock-quote service in London in 1851. It became a global news service and in 1984 became a public company with shares listed in London and New York.
Thomson Reuters says UK shareholders own only about a quarter of its London-listed shares, down from about 58 per cent in 2007, and hold only 5 per cent of the company's total outstanding shares.
Some analysts say London investors were influenced by memories of Reuters' poor performance during the last downturn, and were not convinced of the more defensive qualities of Thomson's products aimed at legal, health and tax professionals.
On Thursday, Thomson Reuters reported a better than expected quarterly profit helped by cost cuts, and said it expected 2009 revenue to grow as the financial industry recovered and banks started hiring again.
Credit Suisse, Bernstein and RBC raised their target price on the shares on Friday, but Jefferies downgraded the stock, saying it expected some UK shareholders to take profits rather than convert into Canadian shares.
● SOURCE Reuters
The vote at an extraordinary general meeting in London was 97.4 per cent in favour of quitting the LSE. At a simultaneous EGM in Toronto the figure was 99.6 per cent. Fewer than 100 shareholders attended the London meeting, with a similar number in Toronto.
The Canadian vote was decided by Thomson's family holding company, Woodbridge, which owns about two-thirds of the outstanding shares in Thomson Reuters Corp and had already committed to vote in favour of the move.
It will also delist from NASDAQ, remaining on the main New York and Toronto exchanges.
The delistings are expected to take place on 10 September, subject to UK court approval.
Shareholders in Thomson Reuters PLC are entitled to receive one Thomson Reuters Corp share for every PLC share they hold, while holders of American Depository Shares will receive six Thomson Reuters Corp shares per ADS.
Thomson Reuters, formed in 2008 when Canadian data publisher Thomson bought Reuters, has said it wants to simplify its capital structure and eliminate the persistent discount at which the London shares have traded to the Canadian shares.
The UK shares have traded at a discount to the Canadian shares since the April 2008 merger. The gap has narrowed to 2 per cent from 13.6 per cent before the company announced its plan in June to delist the London shares.
"I expect that a more straightforward capital structure will ensure that the focus of investors will remain firmly on the company itself and not on its capital structure," chief executive Tom Glocer told shareholders in London.
Not all shareholders agreed with the decision. "This country is a link to Europe. It looks like everything is going to shift to America and I'm a bit nervous about that," Allan Ferguson, who holds about 686 Thomson Reuters shares, told the London meeting. "I feel that we're just going to be another outpost."
Glocer has moved his base to New York from London, which remains the company's second-biggest base. Thomson Reuters made 58 per cent of its revenue in the Americas, 32 per cent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 10 per cent in Asia last year.
Paul Julius Reuter opened his news and stock-quote service in London in 1851. It became a global news service and in 1984 became a public company with shares listed in London and New York.
Thomson Reuters says UK shareholders own only about a quarter of its London-listed shares, down from about 58 per cent in 2007, and hold only 5 per cent of the company's total outstanding shares.
Some analysts say London investors were influenced by memories of Reuters' poor performance during the last downturn, and were not convinced of the more defensive qualities of Thomson's products aimed at legal, health and tax professionals.
On Thursday, Thomson Reuters reported a better than expected quarterly profit helped by cost cuts, and said it expected 2009 revenue to grow as the financial industry recovered and banks started hiring again.
Credit Suisse, Bernstein and RBC raised their target price on the shares on Friday, but Jefferies downgraded the stock, saying it expected some UK shareholders to take profits rather than convert into Canadian shares.
● SOURCE Reuters
Broker cuts Thomson Reuters rating
Friday 07 August 2009
Broker Jefferies International cut its rating on Thomson Reuters to “underperform” from “hold”, saying that while Thursday's second quarter results were excellent they likely represented the peak of cost savings.
The broker also noted that a decline in subscriptions in the Markets division would likely trickle through later this year.
The Q2 results were better than expected and the company affirmed its 2009 outlook that revenue will grow despite tough conditions in the financial industry.
Profit growth was attributed to cost controls, currency benefits and savings from Thomson's purchase of Reuters last year.
CEO Tom Glocer said the fallout from the financial crisis will likely squeeze the Markets division in the second half of the year.
● SOURCE MarketWatch
The broker also noted that a decline in subscriptions in the Markets division would likely trickle through later this year.
The Q2 results were better than expected and the company affirmed its 2009 outlook that revenue will grow despite tough conditions in the financial industry.
Profit growth was attributed to cost controls, currency benefits and savings from Thomson's purchase of Reuters last year.
CEO Tom Glocer said the fallout from the financial crisis will likely squeeze the Markets division in the second half of the year.
● SOURCE MarketWatch
Tom Glocer: the naked truth
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Tom Glocer’s executive blog is no place for the naked truth, The Daily Telegraph said on Tuesday.
“Chief executive blogs are a tricky balancing act,” the newspaper’s City diarist wrote under the headline “Glocer’s executive blog no place for naked truth”.
“Keep focused on the business and you’re accused of being dry, stray into other areas and you risk imparting too much information…
“Tom Glocer, head honcho at Reuters, plunged headlong into the latter camp with his recent posting about a trip to the sauna. After a good 500 words devoted to how he taught his son to ride a bike this summer, Glocer leaves us with the line: ‘My hard work done for the day, I returned to perspiring beer with Harto in the sauna.’
“Call us prudish but Diary feels a little uncomfortable at the image of a potentially nude Glocer, red-faced and sweaty, shooting the breeze with his 81-year-old father-in-law.”
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph | Tom Glocer’s Blog
“Chief executive blogs are a tricky balancing act,” the newspaper’s City diarist wrote under the headline “Glocer’s executive blog no place for naked truth”.
“Keep focused on the business and you’re accused of being dry, stray into other areas and you risk imparting too much information…
“Tom Glocer, head honcho at Reuters, plunged headlong into the latter camp with his recent posting about a trip to the sauna. After a good 500 words devoted to how he taught his son to ride a bike this summer, Glocer leaves us with the line: ‘My hard work done for the day, I returned to perspiring beer with Harto in the sauna.’
“Call us prudish but Diary feels a little uncomfortable at the image of a potentially nude Glocer, red-faced and sweaty, shooting the breeze with his 81-year-old father-in-law.”
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph | Tom Glocer’s Blog
Tom Glocer gets "substantially more" than others - report
Monday 20 July 2009
Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters’ CEO, was named on Monday as a board director who enjoys substantially more than others “despite tumbling stockmarkets, shrinking earnings and one of the most severe recessions in living memory”.
Glocer enjoyed an annual bonus payout of $3.03 million, or 212 per cent of his basic salary, for 2008. “The payout for the American lawyer, who sold London-based Reuters to Canadian rival Thomson in April last year, comes on top of a $757,397 payment to cover the personal cost of relocating from London to New York and a £27m takeover windfall,” The Guardian said.
Reporting a survey of management pay by Income Data Services (IDS), part of Thomson Reuters, it said UK directors' annual bonuses, when expressed as a proportion of basic salaries, have fallen by a quarter in the 12 months to April, down from 40 per cent of basic to 30 per cent. Over the same period, the FTSE 100 fell 38 per cent.
The survey does not take into account that in some cases board directors are successfully negotiating an increase in their basic salaries, mitigating the net impact on their take-home pay of falling performance bonuses, The Guardian said.
Revised deals are being secured despite unprecedented shareholder efforts to curb what they see as unacceptable revisions to boardroom pay deals.
Managers immediately below board level saw the steepest decline in their bonus, according to the IDS survey. This group had enjoyed bonus awards for the year to April 2008 worth 20 per cent of their basic salary; that has fallen to 13 per cent.
Meanwhile, middle and junior management saw their bonuses pared back from 10 per cent of basic salary to 7.8 per cent on average. Technical and professional staff experienced a lesser reduction in bonus, dropping from 8 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
● SOURCE The Guardian
Glocer enjoyed an annual bonus payout of $3.03 million, or 212 per cent of his basic salary, for 2008. “The payout for the American lawyer, who sold London-based Reuters to Canadian rival Thomson in April last year, comes on top of a $757,397 payment to cover the personal cost of relocating from London to New York and a £27m takeover windfall,” The Guardian said.
Reporting a survey of management pay by Income Data Services (IDS), part of Thomson Reuters, it said UK directors' annual bonuses, when expressed as a proportion of basic salaries, have fallen by a quarter in the 12 months to April, down from 40 per cent of basic to 30 per cent. Over the same period, the FTSE 100 fell 38 per cent.
The survey does not take into account that in some cases board directors are successfully negotiating an increase in their basic salaries, mitigating the net impact on their take-home pay of falling performance bonuses, The Guardian said.
Revised deals are being secured despite unprecedented shareholder efforts to curb what they see as unacceptable revisions to boardroom pay deals.
Managers immediately below board level saw the steepest decline in their bonus, according to the IDS survey. This group had enjoyed bonus awards for the year to April 2008 worth 20 per cent of their basic salary; that has fallen to 13 per cent.
Meanwhile, middle and junior management saw their bonuses pared back from 10 per cent of basic salary to 7.8 per cent on average. Technical and professional staff experienced a lesser reduction in bonus, dropping from 8 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
● SOURCE The Guardian
Delisting disappoints UK investors and analysts
Tuesday 23 June 2009
UK investors and analysts are disappointed at Thomson Reuters' plan to cancel its London Stock Exchange listing, Reuters reported.
Monday’s board decision prompted a jump in the shares on Tuesday, but the rally was tempered by fears some large British shareholders will have to cut or sell their stakes.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said he hoped UK shareholders – only five per cent of the company's combined shareholder base – would retain their investments after the reorganisation, but major institutional investors are likely to sell many or all of their shares, given the funds they manage are UK focused.
Reuters reported: "Tom Glocer was good enough to come and see me yesterday afternoon together with the two other remaining institutional shareholders in London, and I am bitterly disappointed," said one top-10 institutional investor who wished to remain anonymous.
The fund manager said he had hoped the company would leave it five years before reaching a decision on its listings.
"The dozy old UK institutions and sell-side analysts are only just realising that Thomson Reuters is a much better company than they thought," he said. "I think investors would have really come back to this one ... It's a real shame."
The company said the fragmentation in its share structure was deterring some investors.
Analysts at Numis Securities said they could see the benefits the simpler shareholder structure would bring but that they too were disappointed by the move.
"We have been firm supporters of the group, which was one of our key picks in Media 2009, and are therefore greatly saddened to see the delisting," they wrote, adding that many UK institutional investors would likely have to sell their stakes.
Numis had a “hold” rating on the London-listed stock prior to news of the reorganisation but upgraded it to “add” in order to reflect the discount relative to the US shares.
UBS analysts said any upside to the shares may be capped by the fact some institutional shareholders would have to sell stock and were less enthusiastic about the company's prospects, retaining a "sell" rating.
"We continue to believe the the fundamental value of the group overall remains too high," UBS analyst Phillip Huang said in a note. "We would expect to see evidence of deteriorating momentum near future, which combined with imminent increased liquidity, could put pressure on the Corp valuation."
Meanwhile, the longstanding valuation spread between the stocks has already dropped to less than four per cent from 9.3 per cent and will continue to narrow, Huang said.
"[There] may be some offset from PLC holders selling if unable to hold Corp," he said.
In any event, London shares are likely to be driven down in value by virtue of the delisting announcement alone, so Huang has reiterated his "sell" rating and kept his price target of $23.50.
Todd Bourell, a partner at hedge fund ValueAct Capital, which owns 12 million Thomson Reuters shares in London and is one of the company's largest shareholders, said Thomson Reuters' London listing had become problematic for the company.
"The fact that the stock is irrationally undervalued in London is putting a drag on the value of the stock in New York and Toronto," Bourell said.
Canada's Thomson family is the largest shareholder of Thomson Reuters and holds a 55 per cent voting interest.
The Financial Times blamed “a more parochial investment approach” for bogging down Thomson Reuters.
“For a company that makes much of its money from professionals in globalised markets moving capital across borders at high speed, Thomson Reuters became oddly bogged down by a more parochial investment approach,” it said.
When Thomson Corp swooped on Reuters in the summer of 2007, it knew that some UK investors would have trouble holding the paper in its half-cash, half-shares £7.9 billion offer, the FT said.
To avoid a large scale defection of domestic institutions, it turned to a well-worn structure: the dual-listed company, or DLC.
The theory was that shareholders on either side of the Atlantic should be allowed to trade instruments of identical value, taking currency into account, on the local market of their choice.
Reuters’ London shares initially traded at a discount to Thomson’s North American listings until the deal completed in April 2008.
Such gaps are typical with uncompleted deals, as hedge funds bet on possible regulatory delays and other hurdles. Unusually, however, the discount did not disappear when the deal closed.
Over the year, the London line traded on average at a 15 per cent discount to the Toronto quote.
An instrument designed to smooth the takeover instead became an unexpected illustration of the inefficiencies that still exist in modern global markets, the FT said.
The fact that the DLC structure failed to behave as expected was described on Monday by one person close to the company as “irrational”, but analysts identify a number of reasons.
One factor was that the high concentration of the Thomson family’s stake in Canada limited liquidity in Toronto, benefiting the price by restricting opportunities for borrowing stock to sell short.
The simplest explanation, however, may be that UK investors have taken a more bearish stance towards the company, the FT said.
“Their North American peers, many in the company believe, focus less obsessively on the financial data business that serves hard-hit Wall Street and City of London traders and give more weight to its legal, scientific, healthcare, tax and accounting operations.”
For the group, a unified capital structure opens up the possibility of more stock-based acquisitions once turbulence subsides. Having two differently valued instruments could have complicated potential takeovers, especially while more than $5 billion of liquidity was effectively trapped in a pool outside North America.
According to Glocer: “In an age where our markets are global and electronic, brought that way in part because of us at Thomson Reuters, where these shares are traded is much less important to me than where our customers, employees and footprint are.”
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Post | Financial Times
Monday’s board decision prompted a jump in the shares on Tuesday, but the rally was tempered by fears some large British shareholders will have to cut or sell their stakes.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said he hoped UK shareholders – only five per cent of the company's combined shareholder base – would retain their investments after the reorganisation, but major institutional investors are likely to sell many or all of their shares, given the funds they manage are UK focused.
Reuters reported: "Tom Glocer was good enough to come and see me yesterday afternoon together with the two other remaining institutional shareholders in London, and I am bitterly disappointed," said one top-10 institutional investor who wished to remain anonymous.
The fund manager said he had hoped the company would leave it five years before reaching a decision on its listings.
"The dozy old UK institutions and sell-side analysts are only just realising that Thomson Reuters is a much better company than they thought," he said. "I think investors would have really come back to this one ... It's a real shame."
The company said the fragmentation in its share structure was deterring some investors.
Analysts at Numis Securities said they could see the benefits the simpler shareholder structure would bring but that they too were disappointed by the move.
"We have been firm supporters of the group, which was one of our key picks in Media 2009, and are therefore greatly saddened to see the delisting," they wrote, adding that many UK institutional investors would likely have to sell their stakes.
Numis had a “hold” rating on the London-listed stock prior to news of the reorganisation but upgraded it to “add” in order to reflect the discount relative to the US shares.
UBS analysts said any upside to the shares may be capped by the fact some institutional shareholders would have to sell stock and were less enthusiastic about the company's prospects, retaining a "sell" rating.
"We continue to believe the the fundamental value of the group overall remains too high," UBS analyst Phillip Huang said in a note. "We would expect to see evidence of deteriorating momentum near future, which combined with imminent increased liquidity, could put pressure on the Corp valuation."
Meanwhile, the longstanding valuation spread between the stocks has already dropped to less than four per cent from 9.3 per cent and will continue to narrow, Huang said.
"[There] may be some offset from PLC holders selling if unable to hold Corp," he said.
In any event, London shares are likely to be driven down in value by virtue of the delisting announcement alone, so Huang has reiterated his "sell" rating and kept his price target of $23.50.
Todd Bourell, a partner at hedge fund ValueAct Capital, which owns 12 million Thomson Reuters shares in London and is one of the company's largest shareholders, said Thomson Reuters' London listing had become problematic for the company.
"The fact that the stock is irrationally undervalued in London is putting a drag on the value of the stock in New York and Toronto," Bourell said.
Canada's Thomson family is the largest shareholder of Thomson Reuters and holds a 55 per cent voting interest.
The Financial Times blamed “a more parochial investment approach” for bogging down Thomson Reuters.
“For a company that makes much of its money from professionals in globalised markets moving capital across borders at high speed, Thomson Reuters became oddly bogged down by a more parochial investment approach,” it said.
When Thomson Corp swooped on Reuters in the summer of 2007, it knew that some UK investors would have trouble holding the paper in its half-cash, half-shares £7.9 billion offer, the FT said.
To avoid a large scale defection of domestic institutions, it turned to a well-worn structure: the dual-listed company, or DLC.
The theory was that shareholders on either side of the Atlantic should be allowed to trade instruments of identical value, taking currency into account, on the local market of their choice.
Reuters’ London shares initially traded at a discount to Thomson’s North American listings until the deal completed in April 2008.
Such gaps are typical with uncompleted deals, as hedge funds bet on possible regulatory delays and other hurdles. Unusually, however, the discount did not disappear when the deal closed.
Over the year, the London line traded on average at a 15 per cent discount to the Toronto quote.
An instrument designed to smooth the takeover instead became an unexpected illustration of the inefficiencies that still exist in modern global markets, the FT said.
The fact that the DLC structure failed to behave as expected was described on Monday by one person close to the company as “irrational”, but analysts identify a number of reasons.
One factor was that the high concentration of the Thomson family’s stake in Canada limited liquidity in Toronto, benefiting the price by restricting opportunities for borrowing stock to sell short.
The simplest explanation, however, may be that UK investors have taken a more bearish stance towards the company, the FT said.
“Their North American peers, many in the company believe, focus less obsessively on the financial data business that serves hard-hit Wall Street and City of London traders and give more weight to its legal, scientific, healthcare, tax and accounting operations.”
For the group, a unified capital structure opens up the possibility of more stock-based acquisitions once turbulence subsides. Having two differently valued instruments could have complicated potential takeovers, especially while more than $5 billion of liquidity was effectively trapped in a pool outside North America.
According to Glocer: “In an age where our markets are global and electronic, brought that way in part because of us at Thomson Reuters, where these shares are traded is much less important to me than where our customers, employees and footprint are.”
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Post | Financial Times
Delisting won't affect operations, customers, strategy or financial position - Tom Glocer
Tuesday 23 June 2009
“Unification would benefit shareholders by creating a single deep, global pool of liquidity and a simpler, more transparent capital structure,” he said in a message to the company’s 52,000 staff.
“Our shares are currently listed on four different stock exchanges [London, New York, NASDAQ and Toronto], which has fragmented the trading in our shares and deterred certain large global investors from buying our shares. Unification would also reduce costs and complexity across the company.
“You might fairly ask did we not anticipate when we announced the structure in 2007 that a DLC [dual listed company] would split the trading in our shares and carry a cost and complexity burden? We did, but we believed that these disadvantages would be outweighed by retaining and attracting an active following of investors in the UK. Unfortunately, things have not worked out that way. Over the past two years the percentage of shares held by UK active shareholders has declined from 45% of Thomson Reuters PLC to 12%, and North American investors now own 64% of PLC shares. Overall, UK shareholders now represent only 5% of our consolidated shareholder base. In these circumstances, it is now far better to unify our structure to offer a single, deep pool of liquidity to global investors.”
Glocer encouraged staff who hold Thomson Reuters shares to vote for the change at shareholder meetings scheduled for 7 August. He said shareholder meeting materials and proxy forms will be available in early July.
Following unification, all Thomson Reuters shareholders will have the same economic and voting interests in the company as they do under the current DLC structure, Glocer said.
“Our commitment to customers, employees and other stakeholders in London, the United Kingdom and Europe is unchanged by where we list our shares. London is a vital global capital for the markets we serve and home to more than 5,000 of our employees.
“The Founders Share Company has indicated it will support unification as this will in no way diminish our adherence to the Reuters Trust Principles.”
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters to quit London Stock Exchange
Monday 22 June 2009
Thomson Reuters said it plans to withdraw its shares from the London Stock Exchange, “severing a key connection with Reuters' British roots”, as Reuters’ own story put it.
The company said it would also remove its shares from NASDAQ and remain listed only on the New York and Toronto exchanges.
Chief executive Tom Glocer played down concerns that Thomson Reuters could lose any UK-based shareholders through the action, noting that only five per cent of all shareholders are in the United Kingdom. He expressed hope that those shareholders would retain their holdings even after the delisting.
"Our shares are now fragmented, divided between North America and London in a way we didn't envision. That's hurting the company because there are investors who would come in but won't," Glocer said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
Thomson Reuters said it would seek shareholder approval for the London and NASDAQ delistings on 7 August.
"In a global electronic world where shares are trading in ones and zeros ... where we trade our shares is, to me, plumbing," Glocer said. "I think we shouldn't get too hung up ... London is still the second largest centre that we've got."
Thomson Reuters shares closed down 78 cents to C$33.53 on the Toronto Stock Exchange and down 94 cents at $29.08 on the New York Stock Exchange.
● SOURCE Reuters
The company said it would also remove its shares from NASDAQ and remain listed only on the New York and Toronto exchanges.
Chief executive Tom Glocer played down concerns that Thomson Reuters could lose any UK-based shareholders through the action, noting that only five per cent of all shareholders are in the United Kingdom. He expressed hope that those shareholders would retain their holdings even after the delisting.
"Our shares are now fragmented, divided between North America and London in a way we didn't envision. That's hurting the company because there are investors who would come in but won't," Glocer said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
Thomson Reuters said it would seek shareholder approval for the London and NASDAQ delistings on 7 August.
"In a global electronic world where shares are trading in ones and zeros ... where we trade our shares is, to me, plumbing," Glocer said. "I think we shouldn't get too hung up ... London is still the second largest centre that we've got."
Thomson Reuters shares closed down 78 cents to C$33.53 on the Toronto Stock Exchange and down 94 cents at $29.08 on the New York Stock Exchange.
● SOURCE Reuters
Pension increase ruled out for this year
Thursday 14 May 2009
Thomson Reuters has turned its back on members of its UK pension funds and ruled out any inflation-linked increase for 2009, their fourth pay freeze in the past seven years.
The bad news, which effectively means that Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme pensioners are 13 per cent worse off, was confirmed at the Thomson Reuters annual general meeting in London on 13 May.
Pension Review Group chairman Angela Dean asked CEO Tom Glocer when the newly merged company would “do the right thing by its pensioners and pay them index-linked increases, as do other FTSE 100 companies with defined benefit schemes, and as did the old Thomson company for its UK pensioners?”
Glocer ducked the question and passed it to former Reuters chairman Niall FitzGerald, who speaks for “legacy Reuters issues” on the new Thomson Reuters board of directors.
FitzGerald noted that the RPF and SPS were in deficit at the end of 2008. This meant that under the terms of the 2006 funding agreement between old Reuters and the pension fund trustees, there could be no inflation increases this year.
FitzGerald reminded that there had been increases in the three years since the funding agreement, when Reuters put in £230 million to shore up the funds and wipe out their deficits at that time. If the funds returned to surplus by the end of this year, the trustees would be in a position to resume increases, he said.
The funding agreement between RPF/SPS and the company runs out in 2010, when it will be renegotiated. When Thomson took over Reuters last year, it said it was standing by the agreement.
Allan Ferguson, another Reuters UK pensioner who attended the AGM, said he understood that former employees of Thomson “get cost of living increases automatically”.
FitzGerald replied that Thomson Reuters had many pension schemes in many different countries. “Some have automatic indexation, some don’t. I really can’t add anything to what I said.”
David Thomson, chairman of the board and head of the Canadian company which has the controlling interest in Thomson Reuters, ended on a more conciliatory note by saying “we will take into serious consideration your concerns”.
The Pension Review Group wrote to CEO Glocer in April, ahead of the AGM, setting out the concerns of RPF/SPS pensioners and asking the company to resume annual inflation increases, which was very much the custom and practice prior to the first freeze in 2003.
The PRG letter, which the company has acknowledged but not yet provided a substantive reply, noted that Thomson Reuters was doing well and paying Glocer and other senior executives multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses. Pensioners, meanwhile, were getting poorer.
The PRG intends to publish the full text of its letter and the company’s substantive reply, when it arrives. The question asked by the PRG chairman at the AGM was as follows:
At a time when the new Thomson Reuters company is forging ahead, and its top executives from old Reuters are earning multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, why are Reuters pensioners suffering yet another pay cut?
Elderly members of the Reuters UK defined benefit schemes are facing their fourth pension freeze in seven years, which means they are 13 per cent worse off. And this at a time when any savings they might have are producing greatly reduced returns.
When will Thomson Reuters do the right thing by its pensioners and pay them index-linked annual increases, as do other FTSE 100 companies with defined benefit schemes, and as did the old Thomson company for its UK pensioners?
The bad news, which effectively means that Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme pensioners are 13 per cent worse off, was confirmed at the Thomson Reuters annual general meeting in London on 13 May.
Pension Review Group chairman Angela Dean asked CEO Tom Glocer when the newly merged company would “do the right thing by its pensioners and pay them index-linked increases, as do other FTSE 100 companies with defined benefit schemes, and as did the old Thomson company for its UK pensioners?”
Glocer ducked the question and passed it to former Reuters chairman Niall FitzGerald, who speaks for “legacy Reuters issues” on the new Thomson Reuters board of directors.
FitzGerald noted that the RPF and SPS were in deficit at the end of 2008. This meant that under the terms of the 2006 funding agreement between old Reuters and the pension fund trustees, there could be no inflation increases this year.
FitzGerald reminded that there had been increases in the three years since the funding agreement, when Reuters put in £230 million to shore up the funds and wipe out their deficits at that time. If the funds returned to surplus by the end of this year, the trustees would be in a position to resume increases, he said.
The funding agreement between RPF/SPS and the company runs out in 2010, when it will be renegotiated. When Thomson took over Reuters last year, it said it was standing by the agreement.
Allan Ferguson, another Reuters UK pensioner who attended the AGM, said he understood that former employees of Thomson “get cost of living increases automatically”.
FitzGerald replied that Thomson Reuters had many pension schemes in many different countries. “Some have automatic indexation, some don’t. I really can’t add anything to what I said.”
David Thomson, chairman of the board and head of the Canadian company which has the controlling interest in Thomson Reuters, ended on a more conciliatory note by saying “we will take into serious consideration your concerns”.
The Pension Review Group wrote to CEO Glocer in April, ahead of the AGM, setting out the concerns of RPF/SPS pensioners and asking the company to resume annual inflation increases, which was very much the custom and practice prior to the first freeze in 2003.
The PRG letter, which the company has acknowledged but not yet provided a substantive reply, noted that Thomson Reuters was doing well and paying Glocer and other senior executives multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses. Pensioners, meanwhile, were getting poorer.
The PRG intends to publish the full text of its letter and the company’s substantive reply, when it arrives. The question asked by the PRG chairman at the AGM was as follows:
At a time when the new Thomson Reuters company is forging ahead, and its top executives from old Reuters are earning multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, why are Reuters pensioners suffering yet another pay cut?
Elderly members of the Reuters UK defined benefit schemes are facing their fourth pension freeze in seven years, which means they are 13 per cent worse off. And this at a time when any savings they might have are producing greatly reduced returns.
When will Thomson Reuters do the right thing by its pensioners and pay them index-linked annual increases, as do other FTSE 100 companies with defined benefit schemes, and as did the old Thomson company for its UK pensioners?
Thomson Reuters Q1 profit beats forecasts
Thursday 07 May 2009
Thomson Reuters reported better-than-expected first quarter profit on Thursday as it kept a tight control on costs. The company reaffirmed its expectation that revenue will grow this year.
CEO Tom Glocer said the climate in the market had improved but not enough to rule out further weakness.
"I can't really call exactly where the bottom is. There can be false dawns. Right now sentiment is quite good in the market. We see them opening up their purse strings just a little bit," he said.
The London-listed shares closed a tad under 44 pence lower at 1,812 pence, down 2.37 per cent, after hitting a record high of 1,939 before the results were released.
Greater losses were registered in New York and Toronto.
In New York, Thomson Reuters shares closed 5.73 per cent lower at $29.77, a loss of $1.81.
On NASDAQ, the shares closed at $161.51, down $7.98 or 4.71 per cent.
In Toronto, the fall was 4.75 per cent or C$1.75 to a close of C$35.08.
Thomson Reuters’ Q1 net income was $228 million, or 27 cents a share, compared with $194 million, or 30 cents a share, a year ago.
Underlying operating profit, excluding amortisation, integration costs and other items, rose two per cent to $588 million, or 40 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 34 cents per share.
Revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.12 billion, down three per cent from a year ago but up three per cent before currency effects. Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $3.17 billion.
The company reaffirmed its outlook for revenue to grow in 2009, and for underlying operating margin and free cash flow to be comparable to 2008, supported by revenue growth and the expected savings from integration programmes.
Thomson Reuters has said it expects annualised cost savings of $1 billion by the end of 2011, and Glocer said that while this was a good target, he did not rule out more.
Revenue in the Markets division, which supplies news and data to financial institutions, fell seven per cent to $1.85 billion, hurt by lower transaction volumes and job cuts. But the revenue would have risen 0.4 per cent before currency effects.
Though the outlook has brightened in recent weeks, financial institutions have been hit by closures, mergers and deep job cuts, and Reuters reported that the company is regarded by some analysts as the riskiest bet among professional information providers due to its exposure to the financial sector for about 60 per cent of group sales.
But strong execution, a high proportion of subscription and digital revenues, and the resilience of the Professional unit have helped to drive up Thomson Reuters London-listed shares by more than 20 per cent in the year to date.
Revenue at the Professional division, which supplies information to lawyers, scientists, accountants and the healthcare industry, rose two per cent to $1.27 billion, or five per cent excluding currency effects.
Glocer told the Financial Times that Thomson Reuters can take market share from rivals once turbulent financial and legal markets revive.
Bloomberg’s fall in terminal numbers by 2.5 per cent since November suggested “a much stronger descent than we’re seeing” in the markets business where they compete, Glocer said. “I certainly feel we’re at least holding our own.”
Much of the market share gains the group foresees would come from taking over the “do-it-yourself” data efforts of large banks and other customers, he said. Subscriptions had risen by two per cent in the markets business, while transaction revenues had fallen, but would rebound quickly in a recovery, he added.
“It feels like sentiment has changed in the last month,” Glocer told the FT, “but we don’t run our business on the basis that we need to clutch at green shoots.”
Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, said savings from integration were ahead of plan, adding that when combined with earlier initiatives these were on track to meet a $1.4 billion target by 2011.
● CLICK to read a transcript of the analysts’ webcast by Tom Glocer and Robert Daleo.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times
CEO Tom Glocer said the climate in the market had improved but not enough to rule out further weakness.
"I can't really call exactly where the bottom is. There can be false dawns. Right now sentiment is quite good in the market. We see them opening up their purse strings just a little bit," he said.
The London-listed shares closed a tad under 44 pence lower at 1,812 pence, down 2.37 per cent, after hitting a record high of 1,939 before the results were released.
Greater losses were registered in New York and Toronto.
In New York, Thomson Reuters shares closed 5.73 per cent lower at $29.77, a loss of $1.81.
On NASDAQ, the shares closed at $161.51, down $7.98 or 4.71 per cent.
In Toronto, the fall was 4.75 per cent or C$1.75 to a close of C$35.08.
Thomson Reuters’ Q1 net income was $228 million, or 27 cents a share, compared with $194 million, or 30 cents a share, a year ago.
Underlying operating profit, excluding amortisation, integration costs and other items, rose two per cent to $588 million, or 40 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 34 cents per share.
Revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.12 billion, down three per cent from a year ago but up three per cent before currency effects. Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $3.17 billion.
The company reaffirmed its outlook for revenue to grow in 2009, and for underlying operating margin and free cash flow to be comparable to 2008, supported by revenue growth and the expected savings from integration programmes.
Thomson Reuters has said it expects annualised cost savings of $1 billion by the end of 2011, and Glocer said that while this was a good target, he did not rule out more.
Revenue in the Markets division, which supplies news and data to financial institutions, fell seven per cent to $1.85 billion, hurt by lower transaction volumes and job cuts. But the revenue would have risen 0.4 per cent before currency effects.
Though the outlook has brightened in recent weeks, financial institutions have been hit by closures, mergers and deep job cuts, and Reuters reported that the company is regarded by some analysts as the riskiest bet among professional information providers due to its exposure to the financial sector for about 60 per cent of group sales.
But strong execution, a high proportion of subscription and digital revenues, and the resilience of the Professional unit have helped to drive up Thomson Reuters London-listed shares by more than 20 per cent in the year to date.
Revenue at the Professional division, which supplies information to lawyers, scientists, accountants and the healthcare industry, rose two per cent to $1.27 billion, or five per cent excluding currency effects.
Glocer told the Financial Times that Thomson Reuters can take market share from rivals once turbulent financial and legal markets revive.
Bloomberg’s fall in terminal numbers by 2.5 per cent since November suggested “a much stronger descent than we’re seeing” in the markets business where they compete, Glocer said. “I certainly feel we’re at least holding our own.”
Much of the market share gains the group foresees would come from taking over the “do-it-yourself” data efforts of large banks and other customers, he said. Subscriptions had risen by two per cent in the markets business, while transaction revenues had fallen, but would rebound quickly in a recovery, he added.
“It feels like sentiment has changed in the last month,” Glocer told the FT, “but we don’t run our business on the basis that we need to clutch at green shoots.”
Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, said savings from integration were ahead of plan, adding that when combined with earlier initiatives these were on track to meet a $1.4 billion target by 2011.
● CLICK to read a transcript of the analysts’ webcast by Tom Glocer and Robert Daleo.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times
Goldman Sachs cuts Thomson Reuters to 'sell'
Thursday 16 April 2009
Goldman Sachs cut its rating on Thomson Reuters to “sell” from “neutral” on Thursday, sending the shares lower in London and New York.
The influential US investment bank believes the group’s financial information business – the Markets division – will suffer a significant deterioration in sales this year.
Citing another round of job cuts at leading investment banks, Goldman said: “We believe Markets will see significant deterioration in 1Q to -3 per cent and for the full year to -8 per cent, compared with full-year consensus forecasts of -4 per cent.”
At one point the London shares touched 1,611 pence, but then closed at 1,656 – 9.30% below their 52-week high of 1,826 pence set a year ago. The 52-week low is 883 pence.
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Thomson Corp’s takeover of Reuters.
Over the last week Thomson Reuters has underperformed the FTSE 100 index. Over all other time periods it outperformed the index.
Closing prices:
LONDON: TRIL.L up 0.98 per cent to 1656p.
NEW YORK: TRI down 1.70 per cent to $27.19.
TORONTO: TRI.TO down 1.29 per cent to C$32.90.
NASDAQ: TRIN up 0.60 per cent to $149.41.
● SOURCE Financial Times
The influential US investment bank believes the group’s financial information business – the Markets division – will suffer a significant deterioration in sales this year.
Citing another round of job cuts at leading investment banks, Goldman said: “We believe Markets will see significant deterioration in 1Q to -3 per cent and for the full year to -8 per cent, compared with full-year consensus forecasts of -4 per cent.”
At one point the London shares touched 1,611 pence, but then closed at 1,656 – 9.30% below their 52-week high of 1,826 pence set a year ago. The 52-week low is 883 pence.
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Thomson Corp’s takeover of Reuters.
Over the last week Thomson Reuters has underperformed the FTSE 100 index. Over all other time periods it outperformed the index.
Closing prices:
LONDON: TRIL.L up 0.98 per cent to 1656p.
NEW YORK: TRI down 1.70 per cent to $27.19.
TORONTO: TRI.TO down 1.29 per cent to C$32.90.
NASDAQ: TRIN up 0.60 per cent to $149.41.
● SOURCE Financial Times
Tom Glocer's radical ideas about newspapers
Tuesday 07 April 2009
Tom Glocer has weighed in on the crisis in US newspapers with some trenchant ideas – The New York Times could get by with 60 journalists instead of 10 times that number, he says.
"Why does The New York Times need to have 600-700 journalists? Why not 30 journalists with 30 apprentices? Does The New York Times do a good job covering sports? So-so. Do they do a good job covering business? No. How about The New York Times on Israel, FT on Germany and France, which is really good, ESPN on sports and other smaller things coming together on a style sheet every morning?" Thomson Reuters’ CEO said.
But would people pay for it? "People will pay for quality journalism, whether through micropayments or regular, boring subscription plans."
Glocer said Reuters is comfortable reinventing itself. Until 1970, it never made more than about $100 million a year, he said. Today, it's a $13.5 billion company because it is "getting out of provisional news gathering, like stop being like the AP and other press, and realising there was value in information from professionals in their work, whether it was bankers, lawyers and accountants and health care professionals."
Glocer also discussed Twitter, the fast-growing micro-blogging phenomenon, saying, "I think if you hooked up Einstein to Twitter, it'd be garbage, too."
And he explained why he switched from LinkedIn to Facebook for business networking: "Every asshole who wanted a job was pestering me on LinkedIn and nobody interesting was coming to me."
Glocer also emphasized the need for financial companies to move into more transparent practices and release real-time data sets, instead of quarterly or yearly reports.
"Even when it's down to press releases and Webcasts, it's really all about a bunch of people inside the walls of a company, a corporation pretending that they have some control over what gets out and a bunch of people on the other side, interpreting the official flow, and then most of the art is saying how that's bullshit," he said.
"What if we stopped this charade that people like me pretend to be in control of the timing, and to some extent, the content of my business, and instead release a real-time flow of information?"
Certainly, that will change the game for financial reporters. "I mean, what are good journalists? For good journalists, their job in company reporting is essentially to find out stuff that companies don't want to release outside of their normal cycles or templates, and get that information faster."
Glocer believes the evolution of news will be a slow process. "I've met a lot of smart people in my life, and they're the ones who are eventually always right and they always know where things are going [and] they always underestimate friction in the world and how long it takes to get there."
"Since we're still human beings, living in a friction-filled world, it'll take at least 10 years for the media cycle to catch up," he said.
Glocer was talking in Brooklyn, New York on Monday night at a Futurists Meetup about what financial news and data will look like in 30 years. His remarks were reported by The New York Observer.
“While Glocer’s proposal might seem a little drastic, last week the NYTCo did some scaling back by folding the International Herald Tribune’s site into the NYTimes.com’s global section,” the Observer said.
Postscript: Four days later Tom Glocer said his talk on the future of financial information and the ensuing discussion was not particularly controversial, “but my answer to a somewhat unrelated question on the future of newspapers has been ricocheting in an increasingly inaccurate way across the blogosphere”.
In a posting on his blog on on 11 April, Glocer wrote: “I did, in fact, imagine a future (again 30 years hence) when a newspaper (in my example my hometown New York Times) could employ only 60 journalists rather than the hundreds who work there today. In my example, I challenged our conception of what a newspaper must include and imagined my theoretically ideal paper which combined New York Times content on the Middle-East, the FT on Europe, the Wall Street Journal or Reuters for finance, ESPN for sports and so on. The web, of course, already makes such a mash-up possible today either through browser tabs or RSS feeds.
“In this sort of disaggregated world, the NYT would not need a staff of hundreds to produce a fully integrated newspaper, any more than Apple needs to manufacture its own hard drives or touch screens. I imagined that to really focus on one or two core strengths that it could do better than any other publication, the Times might need 30 star journalists – the Tom Friedmans and William Safires, a couple of great editors, and then an up and coming group (or farm system) of 30 junior staff who could grow into the next generation of stars. I readily admit this would be much different from our current view of what a newspaper should look like, but ironically this alternative reality is not so far removed from that apparently described by the great Times editor Max Frankel in a memo to management several years ago (see The Inheritance Vanity Fair, May 2009).
“Even if this vision of a more open and interoperable newspaper were financially viable, it will be difficult for the current generation of integrated papers to get there. I know from painful personal experience at Reuters that it is much easier to build new from zero to 60 staff than to reduce 1000 to 60. Moreover, there is no reason to believe (just because I came up with a low number to be intentionally provocative) that the ‘right’ number is not 200 or 300. The principle, however, is the same. When I fly on American Airlines, I am actually pleased they feature Starbucks coffee rather than American Airlines coffee. I don’t want Starbucks baristas flying or maintaining the 777, but I see no reason other than inertia why every function must be staffed by ‘insiders.’
“The modern digital world is increasingly frictionless. This requires every company that wishes to survive and prosper to really understand and focus on its core competence. To repeatedly ask ‘what do we do better than anyone else? What defines us?’ At Thomson Reuters, some of our businesses used to build their own computer hardware and operate communications networks, but these are not our core skill set. Today we still build our own editing systems, but likely not for ever. Newspapers are glorious, fabled institutions which serve an important civic role, but that does not give them a perpetual bye to avoid change and reinvention like the rest of us.”
● SOURCE The New York Observer | Paid Content | Media Bistro | Tom Glocer’s Blog
Pay boom for Thomson Reuters executives
Thursday 02 April 2009
Six senior executives of Thomson Reuters have been given share awards that could be worth $61 million, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The awards come after a year in which profits and revenues grew ahead of expectations but fears about the health of the financial and professional customers on which it depends also grew.
Tom Glocer, CEO, was granted restricted stock units valued at a potential $26.1 million over five years. The awards are not subject to performance criteria, the FT said.
“Separate cash and stock bonuses, and $757,000 relocation expenses, mean Glocer’s compensation jumped from £2.61 million for his last year at Reuters to $8.91 million for his first at the helm of the enlarged group,” it said.
A spokesman said the rise reflected larger responsibilities, performance achievements and currency swings. A similar one-time grant to Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division, was valued at $15.9 million, on top of a $4.54 million compensation package for the year.
Thomson Reuters said the awards for the two former Reuters executives, which exceeded those to former Thomson directors, were in part a reflection of the fact that they could not join Thomson’s defined pension plan for executives, which is now closed to new participants.
The details come amid heated argument about executive compensation, particularly in the Wall Street and City firms served by Thomson Reuters, and after contentious contract negotiations with some editorial staff, the FT said.
“But the company has little to fear from shareholder opposition to the rewards as it is 55 per cent controlled by the Woodbridge Company, which represents the Thomson family’s holding.”
Geoff Beattie, president of Woodbridge, was also granted restricted stock units with a theoretical value of $3.57 million. Niall FitzGerald, former Reuters chairman, received restricted stock valued at $707,000. The two deputy chairmen were architects of the Thomson Reuters deal.
The rewards followed a year in which the group hit the top end of its forecasts, with eight per cent pro forma revenue growth and a 19 per cent increase in underlying operating profit.
Last month it accelerated estimates of integration savings from the merger, raised the dividend and predicted further organic growth in 2009.
Executive salaries will be frozen this year, after Glocer’s basic salary slipped from the sterling equivalent of $1.67 million to $1.55 million.
A compensation committee report said it had aimed to increase the portion of his compensation tied to performance.
The Daily Mail said: “In an age of shrinking banking bonuses, the staggering payout made American Tom Glocer one of the highest earners in corporate Britain last year.
“The 49-year old lawyer hit the jackpot after merging Reuters, where he was chief executive, with North American media conglomerate Thomson.
“An estimated £15m share option package was triggered when the £9bn deal was finally given the green light last March.
“But the gravy train gathered more speed when Glocer pitched up in the US as head of the enlarged data and publishing giant and was handed share options worth over £18m in Thomson-Reuters.”
His basic pay at Reuters was a relatively modest £900,000. Glocer is aiming to cut overheads by nearly £1 billion – in a move that will see him slash jobs at the combined financial markets divisions.
The Mail said Thomson Reuters’ annual report published on Monday offers a tantalising glimpse into the pay and perks commonplace in US boardrooms.
“But his sweeteners could revive painful memories for longstanding shareholders.
“Glocer came under fire over the £230,000 annual rent Reuters used to pay for his London home.
“Reuters shares have lost less than a tenth of their value over the past year, making them among the best performers in the battered media sector.”
● SOURCE Financial Times | Daily Mail
The awards come after a year in which profits and revenues grew ahead of expectations but fears about the health of the financial and professional customers on which it depends also grew.
Tom Glocer, CEO, was granted restricted stock units valued at a potential $26.1 million over five years. The awards are not subject to performance criteria, the FT said.
“Separate cash and stock bonuses, and $757,000 relocation expenses, mean Glocer’s compensation jumped from £2.61 million for his last year at Reuters to $8.91 million for his first at the helm of the enlarged group,” it said.
A spokesman said the rise reflected larger responsibilities, performance achievements and currency swings. A similar one-time grant to Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division, was valued at $15.9 million, on top of a $4.54 million compensation package for the year.
Thomson Reuters said the awards for the two former Reuters executives, which exceeded those to former Thomson directors, were in part a reflection of the fact that they could not join Thomson’s defined pension plan for executives, which is now closed to new participants.
The details come amid heated argument about executive compensation, particularly in the Wall Street and City firms served by Thomson Reuters, and after contentious contract negotiations with some editorial staff, the FT said.
“But the company has little to fear from shareholder opposition to the rewards as it is 55 per cent controlled by the Woodbridge Company, which represents the Thomson family’s holding.”
Geoff Beattie, president of Woodbridge, was also granted restricted stock units with a theoretical value of $3.57 million. Niall FitzGerald, former Reuters chairman, received restricted stock valued at $707,000. The two deputy chairmen were architects of the Thomson Reuters deal.
The rewards followed a year in which the group hit the top end of its forecasts, with eight per cent pro forma revenue growth and a 19 per cent increase in underlying operating profit.
Last month it accelerated estimates of integration savings from the merger, raised the dividend and predicted further organic growth in 2009.
Executive salaries will be frozen this year, after Glocer’s basic salary slipped from the sterling equivalent of $1.67 million to $1.55 million.
A compensation committee report said it had aimed to increase the portion of his compensation tied to performance.
The Daily Mail said: “In an age of shrinking banking bonuses, the staggering payout made American Tom Glocer one of the highest earners in corporate Britain last year.
“The 49-year old lawyer hit the jackpot after merging Reuters, where he was chief executive, with North American media conglomerate Thomson.
“An estimated £15m share option package was triggered when the £9bn deal was finally given the green light last March.
“But the gravy train gathered more speed when Glocer pitched up in the US as head of the enlarged data and publishing giant and was handed share options worth over £18m in Thomson-Reuters.”
His basic pay at Reuters was a relatively modest £900,000. Glocer is aiming to cut overheads by nearly £1 billion – in a move that will see him slash jobs at the combined financial markets divisions.
The Mail said Thomson Reuters’ annual report published on Monday offers a tantalising glimpse into the pay and perks commonplace in US boardrooms.
“But his sweeteners could revive painful memories for longstanding shareholders.
“Glocer came under fire over the £230,000 annual rent Reuters used to pay for his London home.
“Reuters shares have lost less than a tenth of their value over the past year, making them among the best performers in the battered media sector.”
● SOURCE Financial Times | Daily Mail
Brass for the brass
Monday 30 March 2009
Chief executive Tom Glocer, 49, received a $36.6 million package in 2008.
Chief financial officer Robert Daleo, 59, received $14 million. James Smith, 49, president and chief executive of the professional division, took home $5.2 million.
All three executives received a significant part of their compensation in the form of one-time stock option grants aimed at providing performance incentive.
The figures are disclosed in Thomson Reuters’ annual report published on Monday.
The company is one of the few that managed to avoid getting caught in the financial meltdown that claimed so many victims across the economic spectrum, reporting stellar results for 2008, and it is compensating its executives accordingly, the online Financial Post reported.
"Our overall philosophy regarding executive compensation is to pay for performance," the company’s Management Information Circular stated. "We believe this drives our management team to achieve higher levels of results for the benefit of Thomson Reuters and our shareholders."
In 2008 Q4, Thomson Reuters reported net income of $565 million, or 79¢ a share, compared with $432 million, or 67¢ a share.
The largest component of Glocer's pay package was a one-time grant of 700,000 restricted share units that will vest 20 per cent each year for five years providing performance goals are met. His "normal annual compensation" came in at $8.9 million.
Glocer holds 650,231 Thomson Reuters PLC shares.
Daleo went home with $6 million in normal annual compensation and Smith received $5.2 million.
Less than 20 per cent of the total take-home of top executives is described as base salary. The rest is a mix of cash and stock incentives, pension entitlements and "other" compensation.
Financial Post noted that disclosure of executive compensation comes at a time when companies around the world are under pressure from shareholders to keep a lid on management pay.
Thomson Reuters said it expects higher revenues this year despite continuing turmoil on financial markets thanks to diversification into developing countries that are still experiencing growth.
Shares in Thomson Reuters declined 1.43 per cent to 1510 pence on the London Stock Exchange. Despite considerable volatility, the shares are trading at about the same level as they were at the end of March 2008, Financial Post noted.
● SOURCE Financial Post
Tom Glocer on news and newspapers
Wednesday 25 February 2009
The Reuters journalist who reported Thomson Reuters’ Q4 results on Tuesday has added something that was not included in the wire story: the public thoughts of CEO Tom Glocer on news and newspapers.
“During a conference call with reporters, I asked Chief Executive Tom Glocer, who ran Reuters before Thomson Corp bought it, what the company plans to do regarding investing in news,” Robert MacMillan wrote in a Reuters blog.
“I also asked if the company could ever be in the market for another print newspaper. Remember that Thomson Reuters likes to tout the fact that Thomson Corp long ago got out of the newspaper business, thinking there was more of a future in electronic information that you make people pay a lot of money for.”
Glocer on news spending:
“We’ve continued to invest in news and we think 2009 is a very good year in investment for us both in terms of having brought in some of the journalists who have joined from Thomson Financial, but also investments we’re making in new editorial systems, in the video, multimedia presentation of news. So I think one of the good things about the strength of our financial performance is that we can continue to invest when a lot of pure media companies aren’t.”
Glocer on getting “back” into the newspaper business (“I asked whether the Financial Times or the New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune would be good fits, specifically. But why not The New York Times? Everyone with more than a few pennies to rub together is a candidate to buy it these days.”):
“[Thomson was] so early in getting out of newspapers that now to go back in when our business model is so focused on professionals and so overwhemingly electronic doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. … If there were a fantastic information product that was 95 per cent electronic and five per cent a print output device, we would do it — maybe — if it otherwise made sense. I’m not convinced that we know how to run a newspaper any better than the ones running them today.”
Earlier, Glocer said on his blog that newspapers remain dead but journalism is alive and well.
Reporting on a panel debate at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on the health of the media with Steve Forbes of the eponymous magazine; Jonathan Nelson of Providence Equity Partners, the media-focused buyout firm; Shobhana Bhartia of the Indian Parliament and the Hindustan Times; and John Graham of Fleishman-Hillard, the global PR firm, he wrote:
“While we broke little new ground, the discussion was uncharacteristically animated for a 9:00am audience. While Luddites and Refusniks remain, there seems to be growing acceptance of the point I and others have been making for years: Newsprint is an output device, not an end in itself. What matters is quality journalism which can and does thrive in multiple media.
“There are several advantages of paper: it is light to carry, highly legible, and can be folded, written upon and read on the train or in the small tiled room. However, paper has its limitations: it is relatively expensive, must be physically delivered, is less environmentally friendly than digital bits, and cannot be easily searched or processed. This latter point has resulted in the near destruction of the print newspaper model as classified advertising has fled online.
“While these trends are not universal (Shobhana reminded us that newspapers in India continue to thrive), the combination of these structural challenges with the tremendous cyclical pressures being experienced in most markets should not make one optimistic about the future of the print-only model.
“Instead, of lamenting that the Fourth Estate is dead, we should celebrate the innovations of the current age that can now be applied to telling the story, such as blogs, wikis, IPTV, social media, the mobile web, Kindle, electronic ink, etc.. For those who can make the leap while not abandoning their journalistic values, new audiences await.”
● SOURCE Reuters Blogs | Tom Glocer’s Blog
Thomson Reuters profit beats forecasts, sees 2009 revenue growth
Tuesday 24 February 2009
Thomson Reuters reported stronger-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday and said it expected revenue to grow in 2009 despite job cuts and decreased spending among financial industry customers.
The company also said it expected its underlying operating margin this year to be comparable to 2008, supported by revenue growth and higher savings from integration.
"I think the good thing is that we're giving outlook at all. I've seen so many companies with supposedly decent visibility into their business this year pull back and say, 'Well it's too hard,'" chief executive Tom Glocer said in an interview with Reuters.
Thomson Reuters reported 2008 Q4 net income of $656 million, or 79 cents a share, compared with $432 million, or 67 cents a share, a year earlier.
Profit from ongoing businesses, excluding special items, was 57 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 39 cents.
Revenue in the company's closely watched markets division, which serves financial institutions, fell two per cent to $1.9 billion. Overall revenue was flat at $3.4 billion.
"I think it's going to continue to do better than people expect," Glocer said, referring to the markets division.
"It is hard to see anything else outside the doom and gloom in the two financial and media capitals," he said. "It's going to be a tough year, but when you put it all together, we still think the company will be able to show growth."
The professional division, which sells databases and other information to lawyers, accountants, scientists and the healthcare industry, reported revenue of $1.5 billion in Q4, up three per cent. The rise came in part from online, software and services revenue growth of 10 per cent.
The board has approved an increase in the dividend by four cents per share on an annualised basis. The quarterly dividend payable on March 26 is 28 cents per share.
Thomson Reuters raised its forecast for annualised cost savings from the merger to $1 billion by the end of 2011, up from $750 million projected in May 2008.
The integration plan does not include any new rounds of layoffs, Glocer said.
Pressed to comment on the rate of cancellations seen so far this year, Glocer said: "The one thing I can guarantee is there will be cancellations and there will be new recurring subscription sales, and actually the year isn't off badly on that score.”
Glocer attributed the results to Thomson's basic business model, providing "must-have" information to people who are willing to pay for it. "This is not a luxury good or discretionary purchase," he said during a conference call. "This is must-have information that our customers need to run their businesses."
Glocer also said the integration of Thomson and Reuters was moving more quickly than expected, helping to cut costs.
The Financial Times said concern over the outlook for financial services still drives investors’ perception of the stock, and helps explain the wide variation in perceptions of the company in Toronto, where professional assets such as WestLaw are better known, and London, where City sentiment pervades investors’ views of the company.
“The London listing was trading at a 15 per cent discount to the North American quotes on Tuesday morning, but Mr Glocer expressed no urgency about resolving this by ending the dual-listed company structure,” the FT said.
“This is one we haven’t had to spend any time on,” he said. “Either people will buy in [to the growth story] locally [in London] and it solves itself or the shareholder register turns more North American and it solves itself.”
His message, instead, was that Thomson Reuters can stand out from much of the sector in which its shares are categorised. “We can invest at a time when a lot of pure media companies are cutting back,” he said.
“Asked by one of his own reporters whether such investment might include an interest in one of the newspaper companies whose valuations have suffered dramatically, Mr Glocer was clear that he had little appetite for consumer media,” the FT said.
In theory, the $1.8 billion of free cashflow reported by last year would be enough to buy The New York Times, the FT said, but Glocer cautioned: “I’m not convinced we know how to run a newspaper any better than the ones who are running them today, and boy it looks a tough struggle.”
Glocer said the company was on course to see revenues rise next year, driven by forecast growth in Asia, the Gulf and Latin America.
"We're definitely going to be prioritising markets where there's strong growth," he said. "Tactically, it's easier to push on an open door than slam against one."
The £8.7 billion merger of Thomson and Reuters was expected to produce cost-savings of $750 million but the company said annualised benefits would now be closer to $1 billion from 2011.
"Our markets division is entirely a legitimate concern given what we've seen at companies like RBS, Lloyds and Citi," Glocer said. "But what analysts don't appreciate when they're at the heart of the financial crisis in London or New York, is that in many markets around the world - in Asia, the Gulf and Latin America - there is less gloom."
Thomson Reuters shares closed 11.56 per cent higher in New York, 11.47 per cent higher in Toronto, 10.39 per cent higher on NASDAQ and 6.58 per cent higher in London.
The FT said the persistence of a yawning gap between the group’s North American and London-listed shares is embarrassing.
“The 18 per cent discount at which the London listing trades to the US and Canadian listings is an operational irrelevance. Mr Glocer – without referring to it on Tuesday’s results call – probably helped narrow the gulf by announcing a better-than-expected fourth quarter for the markets division. If UK-based investors were expecting the financial data operations to take a heavy hit from the financial crisis (as they did when markets turned down earlier this decade), the division’s resilience should improve sentiment towards the London shares. Familiarity with the more stable Thomson businesses and satisfaction with the improved savings from integrating the two companies are only increasing.
“But it may take more than good housekeeping by Mr Glocer and his team to bridge the Atlantic. The controlling Thomson family has the tools for this job. Its investment vehicle, Woodbridge, has already in effect ‘bought’ UK stock with Canadian paper. Those operations could, and probably should, be restarted...
“Thomson and Reuters deserve credit for not abolishing the London listing at the time of the merger. That would have put UK investors’ noses out of joint. But some 60 per cent of the UK shares are now held by North American investors, who rightly figure that what looks good for Woodbridge is probably good for them. British investors are at liberty to buy back into the group on fundamentals if they wish to benefit from the relative re-rating. But if the UK share of the London listing drops below 20 per cent, they should expect to lose it.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times | The Daily Telegraph
The company also said it expected its underlying operating margin this year to be comparable to 2008, supported by revenue growth and higher savings from integration.
"I think the good thing is that we're giving outlook at all. I've seen so many companies with supposedly decent visibility into their business this year pull back and say, 'Well it's too hard,'" chief executive Tom Glocer said in an interview with Reuters.
Thomson Reuters reported 2008 Q4 net income of $656 million, or 79 cents a share, compared with $432 million, or 67 cents a share, a year earlier.
Profit from ongoing businesses, excluding special items, was 57 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 39 cents.
Revenue in the company's closely watched markets division, which serves financial institutions, fell two per cent to $1.9 billion. Overall revenue was flat at $3.4 billion.
"I think it's going to continue to do better than people expect," Glocer said, referring to the markets division.
"It is hard to see anything else outside the doom and gloom in the two financial and media capitals," he said. "It's going to be a tough year, but when you put it all together, we still think the company will be able to show growth."
The professional division, which sells databases and other information to lawyers, accountants, scientists and the healthcare industry, reported revenue of $1.5 billion in Q4, up three per cent. The rise came in part from online, software and services revenue growth of 10 per cent.
The board has approved an increase in the dividend by four cents per share on an annualised basis. The quarterly dividend payable on March 26 is 28 cents per share.
Thomson Reuters raised its forecast for annualised cost savings from the merger to $1 billion by the end of 2011, up from $750 million projected in May 2008.
The integration plan does not include any new rounds of layoffs, Glocer said.
Pressed to comment on the rate of cancellations seen so far this year, Glocer said: "The one thing I can guarantee is there will be cancellations and there will be new recurring subscription sales, and actually the year isn't off badly on that score.”
Glocer attributed the results to Thomson's basic business model, providing "must-have" information to people who are willing to pay for it. "This is not a luxury good or discretionary purchase," he said during a conference call. "This is must-have information that our customers need to run their businesses."
Glocer also said the integration of Thomson and Reuters was moving more quickly than expected, helping to cut costs.
The Financial Times said concern over the outlook for financial services still drives investors’ perception of the stock, and helps explain the wide variation in perceptions of the company in Toronto, where professional assets such as WestLaw are better known, and London, where City sentiment pervades investors’ views of the company.
“The London listing was trading at a 15 per cent discount to the North American quotes on Tuesday morning, but Mr Glocer expressed no urgency about resolving this by ending the dual-listed company structure,” the FT said.
“This is one we haven’t had to spend any time on,” he said. “Either people will buy in [to the growth story] locally [in London] and it solves itself or the shareholder register turns more North American and it solves itself.”
His message, instead, was that Thomson Reuters can stand out from much of the sector in which its shares are categorised. “We can invest at a time when a lot of pure media companies are cutting back,” he said.
“Asked by one of his own reporters whether such investment might include an interest in one of the newspaper companies whose valuations have suffered dramatically, Mr Glocer was clear that he had little appetite for consumer media,” the FT said.
In theory, the $1.8 billion of free cashflow reported by last year would be enough to buy The New York Times, the FT said, but Glocer cautioned: “I’m not convinced we know how to run a newspaper any better than the ones who are running them today, and boy it looks a tough struggle.”
Glocer said the company was on course to see revenues rise next year, driven by forecast growth in Asia, the Gulf and Latin America.
"We're definitely going to be prioritising markets where there's strong growth," he said. "Tactically, it's easier to push on an open door than slam against one."
The £8.7 billion merger of Thomson and Reuters was expected to produce cost-savings of $750 million but the company said annualised benefits would now be closer to $1 billion from 2011.
"Our markets division is entirely a legitimate concern given what we've seen at companies like RBS, Lloyds and Citi," Glocer said. "But what analysts don't appreciate when they're at the heart of the financial crisis in London or New York, is that in many markets around the world - in Asia, the Gulf and Latin America - there is less gloom."
Thomson Reuters shares closed 11.56 per cent higher in New York, 11.47 per cent higher in Toronto, 10.39 per cent higher on NASDAQ and 6.58 per cent higher in London.
The FT said the persistence of a yawning gap between the group’s North American and London-listed shares is embarrassing.
“The 18 per cent discount at which the London listing trades to the US and Canadian listings is an operational irrelevance. Mr Glocer – without referring to it on Tuesday’s results call – probably helped narrow the gulf by announcing a better-than-expected fourth quarter for the markets division. If UK-based investors were expecting the financial data operations to take a heavy hit from the financial crisis (as they did when markets turned down earlier this decade), the division’s resilience should improve sentiment towards the London shares. Familiarity with the more stable Thomson businesses and satisfaction with the improved savings from integrating the two companies are only increasing.
“But it may take more than good housekeeping by Mr Glocer and his team to bridge the Atlantic. The controlling Thomson family has the tools for this job. Its investment vehicle, Woodbridge, has already in effect ‘bought’ UK stock with Canadian paper. Those operations could, and probably should, be restarted...
“Thomson and Reuters deserve credit for not abolishing the London listing at the time of the merger. That would have put UK investors’ noses out of joint. But some 60 per cent of the UK shares are now held by North American investors, who rightly figure that what looks good for Woodbridge is probably good for them. British investors are at liberty to buy back into the group on fundamentals if they wish to benefit from the relative re-rating. But if the UK share of the London listing drops below 20 per cent, they should expect to lose it.
● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times | The Daily Telegraph
Tom Glocer says Thomson Reuters set for growth in 2009
Thursday 29 January 2009
Thomson Reuters continues to see bright spots in its financial services unit and the company is still set for growth this year, CEO Tom Glocer said on Thursday.
Even though there were big job losses across the financial services industry there would still need to be hirings in new areas, he told Reuters correspondent Mike Dolan at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"The trading of very opaque assets with very wide spreads, I think we'll see those sorts of over-the-counter markets evolve," Glocer said, adding that there will be a need for pricing feeds and infrastructure to accurately price those assets.
"I don't think anybody who's here can in their right mind be optimistic about 2009, either from a global economy point of view or in financial services," he said.
But "in our financial services unit ... we continue to see bright spots right across the world. I'm feeling good about the business.”
Thomson Reuters makes about 60 per cent of revenues and 45 per cent of profits from its markets division, whose customers are mainly banks.
"There's no question that growth has been tempering, it's been coming down,” Glocer said. “But for the company as a whole, we continue to talk about growth in 2009."
He said the integration after Thomson Corp’s $11 billion takeover of Reuters in April 2008 was "going very well".
He also said the company would keep the different listings of its stock in London, Toronto and New York as long as investors demanded it.
"The London listing was left in place to meet the demand. As long as that's the case, there's certainly a rationale for maintaining the listing," he said.
Investors have speculated that the company may drop its London listing as a price gap that opened up on the first day of trading in Thomson Reuters shares in Toronto and London widens.
● SOURCE Reuters
Obituary: Baroness de Reuter
Sunday 25 January 2009
Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, the last of the Reuters, died on Sunday aged 96. The Reuter Barony is now extinct.
She was the widow of Oliver George Paul Louis Gordon, 4th Baron de Reuter (1894-1968), whose grandfather Paul Julius Reuter established his news service in London in 1851. They married on 4 December 1937.
The Barony was granted by Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, brother of Queen Victoria's Consort Prince Albert, in 1871. Queen Victoria formally recognised the German title as carrying the privileges of the foreign nobility in England in 1891. Reuters' founder was born in Germany in 1816 and became a naturalised British subject in 1857.
As the title passes down the male line exclusively and as all three grandsons of Paul Julius de Reuter were childless, it becomes extinct on the death of the Baroness.
"The name dies with her," said her friend Michael Nelson, former general manager.
Another close friend, John Fox, said the baroness had suffered successive strokes late last year. She died in a French old people's home on the border with Monaco.
He said Swiss-born Marguerite, a widow for more than 40 years, was intensely proud of the family link with Reuters, and of the British nationality she acquired through her husband.
The Reuter family's direct connection with the company ended on 18 April 1915 when the founder's son, Baron Herbert de Reuter, 63, shot himself three days after the sudden death of his wife. Hubert de Reuter, his only son, thus became the 3rd Baron. He served as a private in the Black Watch regiment of the British Army and was killed by machine-gun fire whilst carrying wounded men during the Battle of the Somme on 13 November 1916, five days before the end of that battle.
His cousin Oliver then became the 4th Baron.
Last year Reuters, which had already moved out of 85 Fleet Street, its headquarters since 1939, was taken over by Thomson, the Canadian media group.
Thomson Reuters’ chief executive Tom Glocer said he was saddened to hear of the baroness's death. He added:
"Although the founding family of Reuters were no longer significant shareholders in the company, the baroness did notably attend a service at St Bride's Church, London, to mark Reuters' historic move from Fleet Street to Canary Wharf in 2005."
The baroness was special guest at the Farewell to Fleet Street service.
Marguerite was born on 14 July 1912, the daughter of George Uehlinger of Neunkirch, Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Friends remembered her as a generous woman who spoke numerous languages, loved bridge, opera and ballet, and enjoyed skiing until well into her 70s.
Known to her English friends as Daisy, she long divided her time between Monte Carlo and Lausanne.
"She was a very warm-hearted, hospitable person – generous, philanthropic, a great supporter of the arts and music. She was always immaculately turned out: elegant, refined and beautiful, with the most angelic smile," Fox said.
He said Marguerite would be cremated in Lausanne and her ashes interred there with the remains of her husband.
Postscript: The funeral and cremation of Baroness de Reuter was at the Monaco Athenae on Thursday 29 January.
The service was attended by the nephew of the Baroness, Paul Dunner, and about a dozen friends, mostly from Saint Paul’s Anglican Church whose American rector Fr Walter Raymond conducted the service.
Nelson gave the address.
A wreath from the company carried a “Thomson Reuters” banner. It marked the end of an era.
● SOURCE Reuters
Reuters closes ‘virtual’ bureau
Friday 21 November 2008
Reuters has closed its most bizarre bureau – the virtual one in cyberspace, online reports said on Friday.
The two-man bureau was opened two years ago at Sadville on Second Life, an imaginery playground in the Internet world of unreal, make-believe environments. It comprised Adam Reuters (real name Adam Pasick and Eric Reuters (Eric Krangel).
A Reuters spokeswoman, confirming the Sadville bureau had been closed, told one online reporter: ”We’re still reporting on Second Life, but only as part of our usual tech and media coverage.”
“Does Reuters’ withdrawal mean they’re going to have to explain to their boards why they spent tens of thousands of dollars on the digital equivalent of a wife-swapping party on an oil rig (embarrassing, empty, yet still really dirty)?” The Register said. “Well, there’s no need to fire up the self-justification Powerpoint yet, as it’s only Reuters editorial that has lost the faith.
“‘As a company we’re still committed to Second Life,” the spokeswoman said. ‘We’re maintaining our corporate presence.’ Bravo!”
Krangel himself went online to report in real-world confessional style: “For a year and a half, I reported under the byline ‘Eric Reuters’ in Second Life...
“As part of walking my ‘beat’, I’d get invited by sources to virtual nightclubs, where I’d right-click the dancefloor to send my avatar gyrating as I sat at home at my computer. It was about as fun as watching paint dry.”
Krangel added: “I wasn’t in Second Life to play, I was there on assignment for Reuters.”
The opening of the bureau was described as part of Reuters’ strategy to embrace new digital platforms to deliver next generation news and information.
“Reuters is all about innovation – new technologies, new audiences, and new ways of presenting the news,” CEO Tom Glocer said at the time. “In Second Life, we’re making Reuters part of a new generation. We’re playing an active role in this community by bringing the outside world into Second Life and vice versa.”
● SOURCE The Register | Silicon Alley Insider | Valleywag | Reuters Second Life News Center
The two-man bureau was opened two years ago at Sadville on Second Life, an imaginery playground in the Internet world of unreal, make-believe environments. It comprised Adam Reuters (real name Adam Pasick and Eric Reuters (Eric Krangel).
A Reuters spokeswoman, confirming the Sadville bureau had been closed, told one online reporter: ”We’re still reporting on Second Life, but only as part of our usual tech and media coverage.”
“Does Reuters’ withdrawal mean they’re going to have to explain to their boards why they spent tens of thousands of dollars on the digital equivalent of a wife-swapping party on an oil rig (embarrassing, empty, yet still really dirty)?” The Register said. “Well, there’s no need to fire up the self-justification Powerpoint yet, as it’s only Reuters editorial that has lost the faith.
“‘As a company we’re still committed to Second Life,” the spokeswoman said. ‘We’re maintaining our corporate presence.’ Bravo!”
Krangel himself went online to report in real-world confessional style: “For a year and a half, I reported under the byline ‘Eric Reuters’ in Second Life...
“As part of walking my ‘beat’, I’d get invited by sources to virtual nightclubs, where I’d right-click the dancefloor to send my avatar gyrating as I sat at home at my computer. It was about as fun as watching paint dry.”
Krangel added: “I wasn’t in Second Life to play, I was there on assignment for Reuters.”
The opening of the bureau was described as part of Reuters’ strategy to embrace new digital platforms to deliver next generation news and information.
“Reuters is all about innovation – new technologies, new audiences, and new ways of presenting the news,” CEO Tom Glocer said at the time. “In Second Life, we’re making Reuters part of a new generation. We’re playing an active role in this community by bringing the outside world into Second Life and vice versa.”
● SOURCE The Register | Silicon Alley Insider | Valleywag | Reuters Second Life News Center
Obama pledge a silver lining for Thomson Reuters?
Thursday 13 November 2008
US President-elect Barack Obama’s pledge to unleash a string of new rules and regulations for capital markets in 2009 could be a silver lining in the credit crunch for Thomson Reuters, The Toronto Globe and Mail said on Thursday.
It would mean more work for lawyers and accountants tasked with keeping up with such restructuring and that could prove good for business for Thomson Reuters whose legal and regulatory databases would be relied upon.
“It’s likely that within the first year of the new Obama administration we’ll see far-reaching new regulation of the capital markets and many changes to the tax code. And this will inevitably boost demand for our legal and tax and accounting products,” the newspaper quoted CEO Tom Glocer as telling analysts in a conference call on Wednesday.
Glocer said Thomson Reuters had noticed an increase in the number of hours that clients were logging on to its legal databases and software applications.
“We’ve already seen an interesting tick up in securities lawsuits [and] lots of investigations going on concerning how did AIG fall apart? How did Lehman Brothers fall apart?” he said. “And then over on our tax and accounting side, it looks very likely that campaign promises to the effect there are going to be changes to the tax code [could] have a good effect on our tax and accounting business.”
● SOURCE The Toronto Globe and Mail
It would mean more work for lawyers and accountants tasked with keeping up with such restructuring and that could prove good for business for Thomson Reuters whose legal and regulatory databases would be relied upon.
“It’s likely that within the first year of the new Obama administration we’ll see far-reaching new regulation of the capital markets and many changes to the tax code. And this will inevitably boost demand for our legal and tax and accounting products,” the newspaper quoted CEO Tom Glocer as telling analysts in a conference call on Wednesday.
Glocer said Thomson Reuters had noticed an increase in the number of hours that clients were logging on to its legal databases and software applications.
“We’ve already seen an interesting tick up in securities lawsuits [and] lots of investigations going on concerning how did AIG fall apart? How did Lehman Brothers fall apart?” he said. “And then over on our tax and accounting side, it looks very likely that campaign promises to the effect there are going to be changes to the tax code [could] have a good effect on our tax and accounting business.”
● SOURCE The Toronto Globe and Mail
Thomson Reuters' Q3 results better than expected
Wednesday 12 November 2008
Thomson Reuters reported stronger than expected third quarter results on Wednesday and said integration was ahead of plan. It affirmed its February forecast for 2008 revenue growth of six to eight per cent.
Gains in the professional division more than offset slowing growth in the markets division.
Q3 net income was $380 million (46 cents per share) compared with $2.97 billion ($4.61 per share) a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, discontinued operations and others, profit was 48 cents per share, higher than the average analyst forecast of 34 cents.
Revenues were $3.3 billion, eight per cent higher than a year ago. Underlying operating profit was 17 per cent higher at $676 million. Media revenues were five per cent higher at $111 million.
“Our results demonstrate the strength, breadth and balance of our company, as our business continued to perform well in the third quarter and our integration plan began to deliver accelerated early savings,” CEO Tom Glocer said.
"The strong growth and profitability of our large Professional Division highlighted its ability to perform well through the economic cycle, while our Markets Division delivered good results despite extreme conditions in global financial markets.
"We are benefiting from our business model which focuses on achieving leading positions in key professional markets, seeking profitable growth in emerging as well as developed markets and providing our customers with deeply relevant content and services via superior product platforms.
"Our revenue growth rates continue to lead our markets and, coupled with integration savings and cost discipline, will help drive continuing profit growth. Moreover, our ability to translate profits into cash flow, supported by our strong balance sheet and liquidity, should allow us to take advantage of investment opportunities that may result from market disruptions while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation."
Glocer said it was the most “wrenching” period he had seen in his 15 years with the Reuters business.
Some analysts have said Thomson Reuters’ revenue could fall in 2009 due to budget cutbacks and payroll cuts among its financial services industry clients. Reuters reported earlier that financial services firms and their staff are being forced to a new era of austerity.
Financial firms worldwide have slashed more than 130,000 jobs in the current global financial crisis, with thousands more losses expected as banks totter and hedge funds haemorrhage assets.
Wall Street bonuses could fall by 41 per cent in 2009 and in the City of London, the cash bonus pool is forecast to fall by nearly 60 per cent this year.
A separate Reuters report on Wednesday said a number of deals designed to cure the crisis are in danger of unravelling, with losses mounting at banks and economies showing signs of serious deterioration.
Thomson Reuters’ London-traded shares, which have lost about 30 per cent of their value since the 17 April merger, closed 4.55 per cent higher. They gained 2.86 per cent in Toronto, 0.46 per cent in New York, and 1.3 per cent on NASDAQ.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Gains in the professional division more than offset slowing growth in the markets division.
Q3 net income was $380 million (46 cents per share) compared with $2.97 billion ($4.61 per share) a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, discontinued operations and others, profit was 48 cents per share, higher than the average analyst forecast of 34 cents.
Revenues were $3.3 billion, eight per cent higher than a year ago. Underlying operating profit was 17 per cent higher at $676 million. Media revenues were five per cent higher at $111 million.
“Our results demonstrate the strength, breadth and balance of our company, as our business continued to perform well in the third quarter and our integration plan began to deliver accelerated early savings,” CEO Tom Glocer said.
"The strong growth and profitability of our large Professional Division highlighted its ability to perform well through the economic cycle, while our Markets Division delivered good results despite extreme conditions in global financial markets.
"We are benefiting from our business model which focuses on achieving leading positions in key professional markets, seeking profitable growth in emerging as well as developed markets and providing our customers with deeply relevant content and services via superior product platforms.
"Our revenue growth rates continue to lead our markets and, coupled with integration savings and cost discipline, will help drive continuing profit growth. Moreover, our ability to translate profits into cash flow, supported by our strong balance sheet and liquidity, should allow us to take advantage of investment opportunities that may result from market disruptions while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation."
Glocer said it was the most “wrenching” period he had seen in his 15 years with the Reuters business.
Some analysts have said Thomson Reuters’ revenue could fall in 2009 due to budget cutbacks and payroll cuts among its financial services industry clients. Reuters reported earlier that financial services firms and their staff are being forced to a new era of austerity.
Financial firms worldwide have slashed more than 130,000 jobs in the current global financial crisis, with thousands more losses expected as banks totter and hedge funds haemorrhage assets.
Wall Street bonuses could fall by 41 per cent in 2009 and in the City of London, the cash bonus pool is forecast to fall by nearly 60 per cent this year.
A separate Reuters report on Wednesday said a number of deals designed to cure the crisis are in danger of unravelling, with losses mounting at banks and economies showing signs of serious deterioration.
Thomson Reuters’ London-traded shares, which have lost about 30 per cent of their value since the 17 April merger, closed 4.55 per cent higher. They gained 2.86 per cent in Toronto, 0.46 per cent in New York, and 1.3 per cent on NASDAQ.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
World crisis will hurt us, Tom Glocer says
Thursday 02 October 2008
Thomson Reuters reaffirmed its full-year outlook on Thursday but Tom Glocer said the world financial crisis will hurt the company as banks lose staff and take out trading and information terminals.
“You’ve got to say this is a negative short to middle term,” the CEO told analysts at a London investor day. But he said the banking consolidation now beginning represents a long-term opportunity.
“There’s a lot of compensating work that needs to be done now to stitch together all these trading operations,” Glocer said.
Thomson Reuters’ markets division is exposed to financial services and contributes 59 per cent of group sales. Glocer said the Thomson Financial legal and health professional business would help the company to weather the storm.
In slides for the presentation the company said it expected revenue growth of 6 to 8 per cent, almost all organic, and an underlying profit margin of 19 to 21 per cent for 2008.
It also reiterated targets to generate free cash flow of 11 to 12 per cent of sales for capital expenditure of 8 to 9 per cent of revenue.
The company said it had completed its refinancing needs for Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters in April through long-term debt offerings in June. It had a $2.5 billion credit facility on which it had not drawn.
Devin Wenig, markets division CEO, said the company’s foreign exchange business had its best month ever in September. But he could not predict how long it would take until conditions for the division as a whole would improve.
“We certainly are not viewing this through rose-coloured glasses. We’ve never seen a market like this. There are parts of our business that are really challenged right now,” he said.
● SOURCE Reuters
“You’ve got to say this is a negative short to middle term,” the CEO told analysts at a London investor day. But he said the banking consolidation now beginning represents a long-term opportunity.
“There’s a lot of compensating work that needs to be done now to stitch together all these trading operations,” Glocer said.
Thomson Reuters’ markets division is exposed to financial services and contributes 59 per cent of group sales. Glocer said the Thomson Financial legal and health professional business would help the company to weather the storm.
In slides for the presentation the company said it expected revenue growth of 6 to 8 per cent, almost all organic, and an underlying profit margin of 19 to 21 per cent for 2008.
It also reiterated targets to generate free cash flow of 11 to 12 per cent of sales for capital expenditure of 8 to 9 per cent of revenue.
The company said it had completed its refinancing needs for Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters in April through long-term debt offerings in June. It had a $2.5 billion credit facility on which it had not drawn.
Devin Wenig, markets division CEO, said the company’s foreign exchange business had its best month ever in September. But he could not predict how long it would take until conditions for the division as a whole would improve.
“We certainly are not viewing this through rose-coloured glasses. We’ve never seen a market like this. There are parts of our business that are really challenged right now,” he said.
● SOURCE Reuters
Pension increase in 2009 ‘uncertain’
Thursday 25 September 2008
Prospects for an increase in Reuters UK pensions next year to keep pace with sharply rising prices are still very uncertain, the Pension Review Group said.
After three years of inflation-linked rises for RPF and SPS members, the chances of making it four years in succession are overshadowed by the turmoil in world financial markets.
The group noted that CEO Tom Glocer, announcing this year’s 3.9 per cent increase in April, pledged: “Honouring our pension commitments is something we take very seriously and will continue to do so.”
It added: “However, UK pensioners will remember the three lean years between 2003-2005, when increases were stopped and we lost around 7 per cent of our pensions to inflation. Under pressure from the SPS/RPF trustees and the Pension Review Group, the company shored up the pension fund with an injection of capital and agreed to a resumption of increases in 2006.
“But these remain discretionary and have to be justified each year. The decision on whether any increase can be paid in 2009 will follow a check on the financial position of SPS and RPF as at December 31. If there is a big enough surplus of assets over liabilities, the trustees can recommend an increase.”
With the world credit crunch causing extreme market volatility, there is no guarantee there will be enough, or indeed any surplus from the funds’ investments to increase pensions, the PRG said.
“No decision is expected much before the second quarter of 2009, although it is hoped that if we do get an increase, it will be backdated to January 1, like this year.”
The PRG wants the company to guarantee annual index-linked increases in the pension. It added:
“We keep in close touch with the trustees and other interested parties and will continue pressing the company to grant its former UK employees what the majority of FTSE 100 final salary pensioners take for granted – the security of a pension which keeps pace with inflation.”
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
After three years of inflation-linked rises for RPF and SPS members, the chances of making it four years in succession are overshadowed by the turmoil in world financial markets.
The group noted that CEO Tom Glocer, announcing this year’s 3.9 per cent increase in April, pledged: “Honouring our pension commitments is something we take very seriously and will continue to do so.”
It added: “However, UK pensioners will remember the three lean years between 2003-2005, when increases were stopped and we lost around 7 per cent of our pensions to inflation. Under pressure from the SPS/RPF trustees and the Pension Review Group, the company shored up the pension fund with an injection of capital and agreed to a resumption of increases in 2006.
“But these remain discretionary and have to be justified each year. The decision on whether any increase can be paid in 2009 will follow a check on the financial position of SPS and RPF as at December 31. If there is a big enough surplus of assets over liabilities, the trustees can recommend an increase.”
With the world credit crunch causing extreme market volatility, there is no guarantee there will be enough, or indeed any surplus from the funds’ investments to increase pensions, the PRG said.
“No decision is expected much before the second quarter of 2009, although it is hoped that if we do get an increase, it will be backdated to January 1, like this year.”
The PRG wants the company to guarantee annual index-linked increases in the pension. It added:
“We keep in close touch with the trustees and other interested parties and will continue pressing the company to grant its former UK employees what the majority of FTSE 100 final salary pensioners take for granted – the security of a pension which keeps pace with inflation.”
● SOURCE Pension Review Group
Has Reuters given up on news?
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Has Reuters given up on news? At least one online commentator thinks so following an announcement that Reuters is asking users of a virtual prediction website what will happen before the event itself.
“Ancient news outfit Reuters has given up on working out news based on facts and will ask the virtual prediction site, Hubdub what will happen instead,” The Inquirer, a UK-based website that bills itself as “News, reviews, facts and friction”, said on Tuesday.
Hubdub, launched in February, is an online game that has created a section that allows players to predict the outcome of ongoing Reuters stories. Reuters will be able to establish a network of “friends” and link back to its own widgets and articles, according to the website ● www.journalism.co.uk.
Reuters questions have gained popularity on the web, in particular with financial news forecasts, Hubdub said. Its members made predictions about the recent HBOS take-over by Lloyds TSB “long before mainstream media” began covering the story, Hubdub founder Nigel Eccles said.
“We want to build up our user base, and as that gets bigger they’ll see Reuters’ questions, which sends traffic back to those news sites,” he said. Hubdub has 150,000 users.
“Reuters are obviously very very aware of how their news affects the markets – we’d be pretty aware of not letting that become an issue,” Eccles said.
Reuters’ top question on Hubdub on Tuesday was: Who will use the word “regulation” most in the first presidential debate? Respondents were split evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain.
“Reuters is a phenomenal agency,” Eccles said. “The technology we’ve got can make the experience for their readers really interesting. We’re really excited about the editorial content that comes out of it.”
He said Hubdub’s growth has “been very, very quick” and the relationship with Reuters took just two months to finalise after a “chance encounter” with the organisation in the United States.
Asked whether people could make predictions to better their own shares, Eccles said: “We’ve been running the markets for about 8 months now, and we’ve become pretty good at catching most of them. In general, we catch the vast majority of it.”
The Inquirer commented: “Apparently the combined fortune-telling powers of Hubdub members is far greater than all of the hacks in all of the world.”
The Washington Post, which launched a similar current events-related prediction market in July, said Reuters’ Hubdub connection could have a more significant impact: “If the site can grow a large and diverse user base, it could potentially help pollsters and news organizations quickly get a feel for the public’s perception on a given issue.”
Hubdub is not Reuters’ first foray into the virtual world. Two years ago it launched the first ever virtual news bureau on Second Life, an online world inhabited by hundreds of thousands users with its own virtual economy. The opening of the bureau was described as part of Reuters’ strategy to embrace new digital platforms to deliver next generation news and information.
“Reuters is all about innovation – new technologies, new audiences, and new ways of presenting the news,” CEO Tom Glocer said at the time. “In Second Life, we’re making Reuters part of a new generation. We’re playing an active role in this community by bringing the outside world into Second Life and vice versa.”
Reuters’ Second Life bureau has a virtual bureau chief known as Adam Reuters and a reporter called Erik Reuters. In real life they are Reuters journalists Adam Pasick, a technology and media correspondent, and Erik Krangel, who covers technology from New York.
● SOURCE The Inquirer | Journalism | Hubdub | The Washington Post | The World Editors Forum | Reuters | Reuters Second Life News Center
“Ancient news outfit Reuters has given up on working out news based on facts and will ask the virtual prediction site, Hubdub what will happen instead,” The Inquirer, a UK-based website that bills itself as “News, reviews, facts and friction”, said on Tuesday.
Hubdub, launched in February, is an online game that has created a section that allows players to predict the outcome of ongoing Reuters stories. Reuters will be able to establish a network of “friends” and link back to its own widgets and articles, according to the website ● www.journalism.co.uk.
Reuters questions have gained popularity on the web, in particular with financial news forecasts, Hubdub said. Its members made predictions about the recent HBOS take-over by Lloyds TSB “long before mainstream media” began covering the story, Hubdub founder Nigel Eccles said.
“We want to build up our user base, and as that gets bigger they’ll see Reuters’ questions, which sends traffic back to those news sites,” he said. Hubdub has 150,000 users.
“Reuters are obviously very very aware of how their news affects the markets – we’d be pretty aware of not letting that become an issue,” Eccles said.
Reuters’ top question on Hubdub on Tuesday was: Who will use the word “regulation” most in the first presidential debate? Respondents were split evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain.
“Reuters is a phenomenal agency,” Eccles said. “The technology we’ve got can make the experience for their readers really interesting. We’re really excited about the editorial content that comes out of it.”
He said Hubdub’s growth has “been very, very quick” and the relationship with Reuters took just two months to finalise after a “chance encounter” with the organisation in the United States.
Asked whether people could make predictions to better their own shares, Eccles said: “We’ve been running the markets for about 8 months now, and we’ve become pretty good at catching most of them. In general, we catch the vast majority of it.”
The Inquirer commented: “Apparently the combined fortune-telling powers of Hubdub members is far greater than all of the hacks in all of the world.”
The Washington Post, which launched a similar current events-related prediction market in July, said Reuters’ Hubdub connection could have a more significant impact: “If the site can grow a large and diverse user base, it could potentially help pollsters and news organizations quickly get a feel for the public’s perception on a given issue.”
Hubdub is not Reuters’ first foray into the virtual world. Two years ago it launched the first ever virtual news bureau on Second Life, an online world inhabited by hundreds of thousands users with its own virtual economy. The opening of the bureau was described as part of Reuters’ strategy to embrace new digital platforms to deliver next generation news and information.
“Reuters is all about innovation – new technologies, new audiences, and new ways of presenting the news,” CEO Tom Glocer said at the time. “In Second Life, we’re making Reuters part of a new generation. We’re playing an active role in this community by bringing the outside world into Second Life and vice versa.”
Reuters’ Second Life bureau has a virtual bureau chief known as Adam Reuters and a reporter called Erik Reuters. In real life they are Reuters journalists Adam Pasick, a technology and media correspondent, and Erik Krangel, who covers technology from New York.
● SOURCE The Inquirer | Journalism | Hubdub | The Washington Post | The World Editors Forum | Reuters | Reuters Second Life News Center
Revenue ‘strongly positive’ - Tom Glocer
Thursday 18 September 2008
Revenue at Thomson Reuters’ markets division has been “strongly positive” through the last week of financial crisis on Wall Street, CEO Tom Glocer said on Thursday.
Sales were “still tracking to positive revenue growth next year” but this week’s turmoil “raises the potential to go negative”, he said at the annual Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York.
Glocer said the institutions toppled by the financial crisis of recent months accounted for just 1 per cent of Thomson Reuters’ annual revenues.
“This week there has obviously been extraordinary panic, but it’s not like it’s been rosy the past 13 or 14 months,” he said.
Before the “major sea-shift” in financial markets, the group had been on course to record positive revenue growth next year.
If the current crisis were limited to the already known consequences of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the takeovers of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, and the government bail-outs of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, there was “the potential [for sales growth] to go negative, but the business is resilient enough that we’d have a significant shot at going positive next year”.
The CEO added: “If we’re at the beginning of the 1930s, as some would say, it will be more serious.”
Glocer said it was difficult for him to reconcile the company’s positive performance this far into the credit crisis with his experiences in previous economic and financial downturns.
Thomson Reuters shares rebounded in New York and Toronto, regaining some of the losses caused by the financial market shakeout, but lost further ground in London.
● SOURCE Dow Jones | CNN
Sales were “still tracking to positive revenue growth next year” but this week’s turmoil “raises the potential to go negative”, he said at the annual Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York.
Glocer said the institutions toppled by the financial crisis of recent months accounted for just 1 per cent of Thomson Reuters’ annual revenues.
“This week there has obviously been extraordinary panic, but it’s not like it’s been rosy the past 13 or 14 months,” he said.
Before the “major sea-shift” in financial markets, the group had been on course to record positive revenue growth next year.
If the current crisis were limited to the already known consequences of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the takeovers of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, and the government bail-outs of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, there was “the potential [for sales growth] to go negative, but the business is resilient enough that we’d have a significant shot at going positive next year”.
The CEO added: “If we’re at the beginning of the 1930s, as some would say, it will be more serious.”
Glocer said it was difficult for him to reconcile the company’s positive performance this far into the credit crisis with his experiences in previous economic and financial downturns.
Thomson Reuters shares rebounded in New York and Toronto, regaining some of the losses caused by the financial market shakeout, but lost further ground in London.
● SOURCE Dow Jones | CNN
Shares ‘tale of two cities’ - Tom Glocer
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Thomson Reuters is looking into ways of reducing the widening discount in its share price on opposite sides of the Atlantic, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The discount widened after the price fell 5 per cent in London but rose 1.5 per cent in New York on Tuesday’s slightly downbeat second quarter results, it said.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said he was puzzled by the continued London discount and he was looking to reduce the gap, the newspaper reported.
“It’s a tale of two cities,” he said. “The North American investors know the professional side of the business well, and have got their heads around the markets division, but then in London, we trade at around a 20 per cent discount.”
The discount was at 19.5 per cent today. The shares closed at 1481 pence, down 77, in London, and $34.98 (1840 pence) in late trading in New York.
“It is a bit puzzling why there is such a large discount as a share in one place is exactly economically equal to another,” Glocer said.
He acknowledged that US investors are buying shares in London purely to get a discount. “That’s something we’re looking at when we repurchase shares,” Glocer said. Thomson Reuters has just completed a $500 share buyback programme.
The Daily Telegraph said Glocer played down concerns about the company’s growth rate, saying that to achieve 7 per cent “12 months into this serious financial crisis” looks like “a very good number to us”. Growth will temper but it will not “fall off a cliff the way it did in 2002-03”, he added.
The newspaper noted that the markets division, whose main business is providing financial news, data feeds and trading platforms to financial institutions, has recently introduced commentary and analysis articles by journalists.
“Mr Glocer defended the move, saying it was not at odds with the Reuters Trust principles of independence and freedom from bias.
“He said the analysis pieces would look into specific situations, and were in response to customer demand for views as well as news.”
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph
The discount widened after the price fell 5 per cent in London but rose 1.5 per cent in New York on Tuesday’s slightly downbeat second quarter results, it said.
Chief executive Tom Glocer said he was puzzled by the continued London discount and he was looking to reduce the gap, the newspaper reported.
“It’s a tale of two cities,” he said. “The North American investors know the professional side of the business well, and have got their heads around the markets division, but then in London, we trade at around a 20 per cent discount.”
The discount was at 19.5 per cent today. The shares closed at 1481 pence, down 77, in London, and $34.98 (1840 pence) in late trading in New York.
“It is a bit puzzling why there is such a large discount as a share in one place is exactly economically equal to another,” Glocer said.
He acknowledged that US investors are buying shares in London purely to get a discount. “That’s something we’re looking at when we repurchase shares,” Glocer said. Thomson Reuters has just completed a $500 share buyback programme.
The Daily Telegraph said Glocer played down concerns about the company’s growth rate, saying that to achieve 7 per cent “12 months into this serious financial crisis” looks like “a very good number to us”. Growth will temper but it will not “fall off a cliff the way it did in 2002-03”, he added.
The newspaper noted that the markets division, whose main business is providing financial news, data feeds and trading platforms to financial institutions, has recently introduced commentary and analysis articles by journalists.
“Mr Glocer defended the move, saying it was not at odds with the Reuters Trust principles of independence and freedom from bias.
“He said the analysis pieces would look into specific situations, and were in response to customer demand for views as well as news.”
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph
Q2 revenue growth slows, shares fall
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Thomson Reuters, reporting combined results for the first time, said revenue growth in its key markets division, which includes news operations, was slower in the second quarter as the US credit crisis took a heavy toll on global investment banks.
It affirmed its full-year forecasts given in May, citing resilience in the Professional division, which sells databases and tools to accountants, lawyers, tax, health and other professionals.
But the London shares, which had gained 13 per cent since the beginning of August, fell 8 per cent before recovering some of the day’s loss. Analysts have said the real test will come late in the year when customers set their 2009 budgets.
“The results were not great,” Reuters itself quoted London derivatives trader Manoj Ladwa as saying. “The market was pricing in half-decent figures and that’s what it got.”
Q2 pro forma revenue rose 11 per cent from a year earlier to $3.4 billion, compared with a 12 per cent increase to $3.3 billion in the first quarter.
The company said markets revenue growth was driven by strength in sales and trading, investment and advisory, and enterprise businesses, particularly in Asia.
“We are encouraged by the robust revenue growth which we achieved despite the backdrop of a challenging economic environment,” CEO Tom Glocer said. This environment was likely to last at least until the end of the year.
Thomson Reuters said pro forma underlying profit – excluding amortization and other items – rose 15 per cent to $708 million.
The company said it completed its $500 million share buyback programme in July, less than three months after announcing it, and that it would repurchase shares from time to time in the future.
The stock fell as much as 8 per cent before recovering to 1,481 pence, nearly 5 per cent lower, in London. On the Toronto Stock Exchange the share fell 4.1 per cent before recovering slightly.
● SOURCE Reuters
It affirmed its full-year forecasts given in May, citing resilience in the Professional division, which sells databases and tools to accountants, lawyers, tax, health and other professionals.
But the London shares, which had gained 13 per cent since the beginning of August, fell 8 per cent before recovering some of the day’s loss. Analysts have said the real test will come late in the year when customers set their 2009 budgets.
“The results were not great,” Reuters itself quoted London derivatives trader Manoj Ladwa as saying. “The market was pricing in half-decent figures and that’s what it got.”
Q2 pro forma revenue rose 11 per cent from a year earlier to $3.4 billion, compared with a 12 per cent increase to $3.3 billion in the first quarter.
The company said markets revenue growth was driven by strength in sales and trading, investment and advisory, and enterprise businesses, particularly in Asia.
“We are encouraged by the robust revenue growth which we achieved despite the backdrop of a challenging economic environment,” CEO Tom Glocer said. This environment was likely to last at least until the end of the year.
Thomson Reuters said pro forma underlying profit – excluding amortization and other items – rose 15 per cent to $708 million.
The company said it completed its $500 million share buyback programme in July, less than three months after announcing it, and that it would repurchase shares from time to time in the future.
The stock fell as much as 8 per cent before recovering to 1,481 pence, nearly 5 per cent lower, in London. On the Toronto Stock Exchange the share fell 4.1 per cent before recovering slightly.
● SOURCE Reuters
Play our winning hand, CEO tells staff
Tuesday 12 August 2008
The Q2 results (April-June 2008) announced on Tuesday were very strong, CEO Tom Glocer said in a message to Thomson Reuters’ staff.
Despite challenging market conditions, both divisions of the company – markets and professional – are performing well.
“I want to congratulate everyone for contributing to these outstanding results,” Glocer said. “Our strong first-half results and continued positive sales momentum across the company give us confidence to confirm our full-year revenue growth and operating profit margin outlook at a time when others have lowered theirs...”
“We are well on our way to becoming ‘one company in one year.’”
“What can we expect in the months ahead? Most analysts predict that the slump in the economy is a long way from over. If so, we are prepared. In economic downturns, the truly great companies extend their lead over the competition, or as Warren Buffett likes to say, ‘You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.’ At Thomson Reuters, we may be swimming against a stronger tide at the moment, but we are wearing high-performance swimwear and fins. It may not be as much fun to manage through difficult times, when clients are cutting costs, but this can be our time to outperform, to pull away from the pack and emerge even stronger when the cycle turns.”
Glocer said Thomson Reuters could face an economic downturn with quiet confidence for three reasons:
● “We have the right business model: our core strengths match customer needs and market trends;
● “We serve the right markets: professional information markets will continue to grow;
● “We deliver the right products: the need for intelligent information has never been greater.”
He added: “I would not trade our opportunity for that of any other company I know. Sure, there will be some challenges in the coming months, but that’s what makes it interesting. We have a winning hand – let’s play it.”
● SOURCE Tom Glocer’s message to staff 12 August 2008
Despite challenging market conditions, both divisions of the company – markets and professional – are performing well.
“I want to congratulate everyone for contributing to these outstanding results,” Glocer said. “Our strong first-half results and continued positive sales momentum across the company give us confidence to confirm our full-year revenue growth and operating profit margin outlook at a time when others have lowered theirs...”
“We are well on our way to becoming ‘one company in one year.’”
“What can we expect in the months ahead? Most analysts predict that the slump in the economy is a long way from over. If so, we are prepared. In economic downturns, the truly great companies extend their lead over the competition, or as Warren Buffett likes to say, ‘You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.’ At Thomson Reuters, we may be swimming against a stronger tide at the moment, but we are wearing high-performance swimwear and fins. It may not be as much fun to manage through difficult times, when clients are cutting costs, but this can be our time to outperform, to pull away from the pack and emerge even stronger when the cycle turns.”
Glocer said Thomson Reuters could face an economic downturn with quiet confidence for three reasons:
● “We have the right business model: our core strengths match customer needs and market trends;
● “We serve the right markets: professional information markets will continue to grow;
● “We deliver the right products: the need for intelligent information has never been greater.”
He added: “I would not trade our opportunity for that of any other company I know. Sure, there will be some challenges in the coming months, but that’s what makes it interesting. We have a winning hand – let’s play it.”
● SOURCE Tom Glocer’s message to staff 12 August 2008
Thomson Reuters ‘may struggle’
Monday 11 August 2008
Thomson Reuters is wasting no time integrating the two merged companies’ staff and legacy products, but despite potential economies of scale and product rationalisation it may struggle in today’s financial markets climate, Dow Jones Financial News Online said.
The balance sheets of financial services corporations are bleeding red ink due to massive writedowns on credit derivatives and mortgage instruments, and companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees this year.
“This means fewer traders needing access to Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters screens,” it said.
Robert Iati, partner and head of global consulting at Tabb Group, said data vendors fare poorly when the financial industry goes into cost-cutting mode. More ominously, financial services firms have been cutting data aggregators in favour of direct market feeds to avoid latency or trading delays. “This is not good for the status quo, but it does give them every reason to improve their own products,” Iati said.
Because of its more diverse client base, Thomson Reuters as a merged entity argues it may be better suited to seeing off a downward economic cycle than if each firm was on its own.
Debra Walton, global head of market development, said: “Clearly anyone in financial markets has an eye on the state of the market and the economy. We feel much more comfortable about our ability to be able to deal successfully with the economy now that the merger has taken place.”
Adam Honoré, senior analyst with consultancy Aite Group, agreed that the merger might help them weather the storm. He said: “The Thomson institutional-type business has hardly hiccupped, but for the traditional Reuters business the number of terminals is definitely declining.”
● SOURCE Financial News Online
The balance sheets of financial services corporations are bleeding red ink due to massive writedowns on credit derivatives and mortgage instruments, and companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees this year.
“This means fewer traders needing access to Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters screens,” it said.
Robert Iati, partner and head of global consulting at Tabb Group, said data vendors fare poorly when the financial industry goes into cost-cutting mode. More ominously, financial services firms have been cutting data aggregators in favour of direct market feeds to avoid latency or trading delays. “This is not good for the status quo, but it does give them every reason to improve their own products,” Iati said.
Because of its more diverse client base, Thomson Reuters as a merged entity argues it may be better suited to seeing off a downward economic cycle than if each firm was on its own.
Debra Walton, global head of market development, said: “Clearly anyone in financial markets has an eye on the state of the market and the economy. We feel much more comfortable about our ability to be able to deal successfully with the economy now that the merger has taken place.”
Adam Honoré, senior analyst with consultancy Aite Group, agreed that the merger might help them weather the storm. He said: “The Thomson institutional-type business has hardly hiccupped, but for the traditional Reuters business the number of terminals is definitely declining.”
● SOURCE Financial News Online
Business TV channel coming - report
Thursday 24 July 2008
Thomson Reuters is preparing to launch a business television news channel to rival those of Bloomberg and CNBC, The Daily Telegraph reported.
It will appear both on the Internet and some form of cable or digital platform. The launch could be as early as January but may be pushed back as the company is conscious of Reuters’ earlier unsuccessful foray into television, the UK newspaper said.
Thomson Reuters wants an extra avenue through which to channel content and raise revenues, The Daily Telegraph said.
“Going head-to-head with the other rolling business channels is a brave move by chief executive Tom Glocer, as it is an already crowded market,” it said.
The newspaper said the New York newsroom, which will act as the main studio for the channel, was opened yesterday by Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division.
It quoted David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, as saying in an internal memorandum that the new newsroom was all about “multi-media opportunities”.
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph
It will appear both on the Internet and some form of cable or digital platform. The launch could be as early as January but may be pushed back as the company is conscious of Reuters’ earlier unsuccessful foray into television, the UK newspaper said.
Thomson Reuters wants an extra avenue through which to channel content and raise revenues, The Daily Telegraph said.
“Going head-to-head with the other rolling business channels is a brave move by chief executive Tom Glocer, as it is an already crowded market,” it said.
The newspaper said the New York newsroom, which will act as the main studio for the channel, was opened yesterday by Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division.
It quoted David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, as saying in an internal memorandum that the new newsroom was all about “multi-media opportunities”.
● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph
Tom Glocer to appear on Q2 results webcast
Tuesday 22 July 2008
Thomson Reuters said it will report its second quarter 2008 results on 12 August. CEO Tom Glocer will appear in a live webcast on that day at 10:00 am EDT/3:00 pm BST. Executive vice president and CFO Robert Daleo will also appear.
To view the webcast go to ● www.thomsonreuters.com, click on Investor Relations and then News & Events. It will be archived for those who miss the live cast.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
To view the webcast go to ● www.thomsonreuters.com, click on Investor Relations and then News & Events. It will be archived for those who miss the live cast.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Downturn is Tom Glocer’s ‘first real test’
Sunday 29 June 2008
Tom Glocer faces his first real test as CEO of Thomson Reuters in the downturn in investment banking, The Sunday Times said.
The downturn is undoubtedly coming – but it doesn’t have to be as bad as last time round, the UK newspaper said.
“That, at least, is the mantra from the newly minted Thomson Reuters,” it said.
“After boarding a plane back to his native New York, from where he will run the company, Tom Glocer now faces his first real test. Thomson still believes it can grow revenues at its financial-markets division during 2009, although most analysts are much less bullish.
“Of course, the new Thomson was created by Glocer so that such a challenge wouldn’t matter as much as it used to. After six years at the helm of Reuters, getting it shipshape after Peter Job’s regime, he concluded that the best place for a company exposed to such a volatile sector as global finance was within another one. His verdict sounded eminently sensible.”
As part of Thomson, markets – which contains the old Reuters business – account for roughly 60 per cent of revenues and 40 per cent of operating profits. Smoothing it out is the more profitable legal, accounting and science information arm.
Thomson has some enviable assets with great defensive qualities. However, it is hard to divert attention from its financial-sector exposure, particularly as most of the £375 million merger cost savings will be squeezed from that division, The Sunday Times said.
“In this gloomy light, it looks as if Glocer has created a cyclical publisher, not a more resilient financial-markets supplier. It is no coincidence that Thomson’s closest rival in professional publishing, Reed Elsevier, is attempting to offload its business publishing arm – the last division keenly exposed to the economic cycle. In these markets, even that auction is unlikely to be hurried.
“Inroads on China and India leave Glocer thinking he is better placed than during the last downturn. In 2002 and 2003, when Reuters’ recurring revenues dropped by 4% and 10% respectively, foreign exchange and commodities were under pressure. This time it is the narrower markets of fixed income and credit that are under the cosh.”
However, the newspaper said it is impossible not to see the impact of the crunch spreading into other departments. Worst-case forecasts suggest 80,000 financial jobs could go globally in the next 18 months. Broker Collins Stewart believes that, despite a push for company-wide enterprise supply deals, 20 per cent of Thomson’s group revenues come from traders’ terminal sales in the United States and western Europe, which are vulnerable when jobs are being cut.
The Sunday Times added that Thomson Reuters shares in London have tumbled 16 per cent since their debut in April, opening up a valuation gap with the more expensive and less liquid stock trading in Toronto.
“A £250m share-buyback programme has been holding them back from greater falls here, but that is due to finish this week, suggesting they will drift further, even though Thomson is forecasting a healthy 6%-8% topline growth across the group this year.”
● SOURCE The Sunday Times
The downturn is undoubtedly coming – but it doesn’t have to be as bad as last time round, the UK newspaper said.
“That, at least, is the mantra from the newly minted Thomson Reuters,” it said.
“After boarding a plane back to his native New York, from where he will run the company, Tom Glocer now faces his first real test. Thomson still believes it can grow revenues at its financial-markets division during 2009, although most analysts are much less bullish.
“Of course, the new Thomson was created by Glocer so that such a challenge wouldn’t matter as much as it used to. After six years at the helm of Reuters, getting it shipshape after Peter Job’s regime, he concluded that the best place for a company exposed to such a volatile sector as global finance was within another one. His verdict sounded eminently sensible.”
As part of Thomson, markets – which contains the old Reuters business – account for roughly 60 per cent of revenues and 40 per cent of operating profits. Smoothing it out is the more profitable legal, accounting and science information arm.
Thomson has some enviable assets with great defensive qualities. However, it is hard to divert attention from its financial-sector exposure, particularly as most of the £375 million merger cost savings will be squeezed from that division, The Sunday Times said.
“In this gloomy light, it looks as if Glocer has created a cyclical publisher, not a more resilient financial-markets supplier. It is no coincidence that Thomson’s closest rival in professional publishing, Reed Elsevier, is attempting to offload its business publishing arm – the last division keenly exposed to the economic cycle. In these markets, even that auction is unlikely to be hurried.
“Inroads on China and India leave Glocer thinking he is better placed than during the last downturn. In 2002 and 2003, when Reuters’ recurring revenues dropped by 4% and 10% respectively, foreign exchange and commodities were under pressure. This time it is the narrower markets of fixed income and credit that are under the cosh.”
However, the newspaper said it is impossible not to see the impact of the crunch spreading into other departments. Worst-case forecasts suggest 80,000 financial jobs could go globally in the next 18 months. Broker Collins Stewart believes that, despite a push for company-wide enterprise supply deals, 20 per cent of Thomson’s group revenues come from traders’ terminal sales in the United States and western Europe, which are vulnerable when jobs are being cut.
The Sunday Times added that Thomson Reuters shares in London have tumbled 16 per cent since their debut in April, opening up a valuation gap with the more expensive and less liquid stock trading in Toronto.
“A £250m share-buyback programme has been holding them back from greater falls here, but that is due to finish this week, suggesting they will drift further, even though Thomson is forecasting a healthy 6%-8% topline growth across the group this year.”
● SOURCE The Sunday Times
Tom Glocer ‘going hard’ after Bloomberg
Monday 23 June 2008
Thomson Reuters is going hard after Bloomberg, long the marquee name on Wall Street for financial information. “For a long time, Bloomberg had it too easy,” CEO Tom Glocer said in an interview with The New York Times.
The two companies are in a dead heat: Thomson Reuters has 34 per cent of the market for financial data, Bloomberg 33 per cent.
The newspaper said Glocer concedes there is some symmetry in Thomson Reuters’ challenge to Bloomberg. “Reuters used to be BOAC,” he said. “Along came Richard Branson and Virgin, and suddenly British Airways became a much better airline. Bloomberg is that Virgin that forced Reuters to sharpen up.”
Glocer thinks he can go after Bloomberg on price and, more important, on flexibility, The New York Times said. It quoted Douglas B. Taylor, managing partner at Burton-Taylor International Consulting and a former executive with both Thomson Financial and Reuters as saying “Bloomberg has a real problem finding new business. They priced themselves at the top of the market. There are different points on a pricing curve that Bloomberg can’t hit but that Thomson Reuters can deliver. It’s going to be hard to figure out where Bloomberg’s new growth opportunities will be that don’t cannibalize its current pricing.”
Price may be a larger factor in emerging markets, particularly Asia, which both companies agree is the next battleground in their war for financial information supremacy, the newspaper said.
“The next stage of the battle may also involve technology. Even before the takeover, both Thomson and Reuters were developing products for so-called black box trading, computer systems that replace human traders. The combined company now leads the business of selling data with minimal time delays for black box systems, a highly profitable line of products, according to Mr. Taylor...
“Even Reuters’s founding business – the news agency that supplies articles and photos to newspapers and Web sites as well as news video to broadcasters and publishers – is growing. As traditional publishers like newspapers shrink their staffs, they rely more on news agencies, Mr. Glocer said. Although he added, perhaps only half-joking, ‘longer term, I hope the patient doesn’t die’.”
● SOURCE The New York Times
The two companies are in a dead heat: Thomson Reuters has 34 per cent of the market for financial data, Bloomberg 33 per cent.
The newspaper said Glocer concedes there is some symmetry in Thomson Reuters’ challenge to Bloomberg. “Reuters used to be BOAC,” he said. “Along came Richard Branson and Virgin, and suddenly British Airways became a much better airline. Bloomberg is that Virgin that forced Reuters to sharpen up.”
Glocer thinks he can go after Bloomberg on price and, more important, on flexibility, The New York Times said. It quoted Douglas B. Taylor, managing partner at Burton-Taylor International Consulting and a former executive with both Thomson Financial and Reuters as saying “Bloomberg has a real problem finding new business. They priced themselves at the top of the market. There are different points on a pricing curve that Bloomberg can’t hit but that Thomson Reuters can deliver. It’s going to be hard to figure out where Bloomberg’s new growth opportunities will be that don’t cannibalize its current pricing.”
Price may be a larger factor in emerging markets, particularly Asia, which both companies agree is the next battleground in their war for financial information supremacy, the newspaper said.
“The next stage of the battle may also involve technology. Even before the takeover, both Thomson and Reuters were developing products for so-called black box trading, computer systems that replace human traders. The combined company now leads the business of selling data with minimal time delays for black box systems, a highly profitable line of products, according to Mr. Taylor...
“Even Reuters’s founding business – the news agency that supplies articles and photos to newspapers and Web sites as well as news video to broadcasters and publishers – is growing. As traditional publishers like newspapers shrink their staffs, they rely more on news agencies, Mr. Glocer said. Although he added, perhaps only half-joking, ‘longer term, I hope the patient doesn’t die’.”
● SOURCE The New York Times
The future of news - by Tom Glocer
Wednesday 28 May 2008
CEO Tom Glocer has spelt out his vision of the future of news and it involves “citizen journalists” – non-professionals snapping pictures with mobile phones and reporting on websites.
“I’ve been a big advocate of opening the doors and make it one long continuum between citizen journalist and somebody who might be on staff at 20 years publishing at Reuters under the Reuters name...” he said in an on-stage interview at D: All Things Digital, an annual conference in California’s Silicon Valley sponsored by The Wall Street Journal.
“We have 2,600 journalists on staff, and several thousand stringers. And then there is a third concentric circle, which is citizen journalist. In video or still photography, for instance...the eyewitness who blogs has value if no one else is there.”
How will news be delivered in five years’ time?
“I see agency business end up just an electronic exchange platform, purely mutualised. We’ll see a mix of arguably more comments from high-talent sources, and openness to aggregate other voices.”
Where will people get their news?
“Mobile will be very important. I get most of my information on where Thomson Reuters is trading off of a mobile app.”
Glocer said it is a scary time to be in the traditional news business but fantastic for the agency world. Everyone is pulling reporting staff back to home base and is ever more dependent on news agencies, whether Reuters or AP.
They have to make their Web sites 24 hours and need copy. “And they need video and photos, all of which we have.”
Glocer said the Thomson Reuters agency business has been growing five to 10 per cent a year for the past few years and is three per cent of the total company’s revenues.
● SOURCE D: All Things Digital | Barron’s Tech Trader Daily
“I’ve been a big advocate of opening the doors and make it one long continuum between citizen journalist and somebody who might be on staff at 20 years publishing at Reuters under the Reuters name...” he said in an on-stage interview at D: All Things Digital, an annual conference in California’s Silicon Valley sponsored by The Wall Street Journal.
“We have 2,600 journalists on staff, and several thousand stringers. And then there is a third concentric circle, which is citizen journalist. In video or still photography, for instance...the eyewitness who blogs has value if no one else is there.”
How will news be delivered in five years’ time?
“I see agency business end up just an electronic exchange platform, purely mutualised. We’ll see a mix of arguably more comments from high-talent sources, and openness to aggregate other voices.”
Where will people get their news?
“Mobile will be very important. I get most of my information on where Thomson Reuters is trading off of a mobile app.”
Glocer said it is a scary time to be in the traditional news business but fantastic for the agency world. Everyone is pulling reporting staff back to home base and is ever more dependent on news agencies, whether Reuters or AP.
They have to make their Web sites 24 hours and need copy. “And they need video and photos, all of which we have.”
Glocer said the Thomson Reuters agency business has been growing five to 10 per cent a year for the past few years and is three per cent of the total company’s revenues.
● SOURCE D: All Things Digital | Barron’s Tech Trader Daily
Times fires broadside at Tom Glocer yacht
Thursday 22 May 2008
The Times fired a broadside at CEO Tom Glocer for chartering a yacht to moor in the harbour at Monaco just as Thomson Reuters announces 1,500 jobs cuts.
Glocer is entertaining investment bankers during the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend. Reuters sponsors the AT&T Williams team in the Formula One championship.
Under the headline “Tom Glocer sails off on a sea of others’ troubles”, The Times City Diary said: “In an act of callousness that might have brought a blush to the cheeks of Marie Antoinette herself, Tom Glocer, the Thomson Reuters chief executive, has chartered a yacht to moor in the harbour at Monaco just as the newly merged company announces 1,500 job cuts.
“The losses were put down to the urgent need to cut costs, and staffers there are understandably sick to see Glocer, as part of the group’s sponsorship of F1, hire the yacht to entertain investment banking clients to coincide with the grand prix there.
“Thomson Reuters is refusing to comment. Glocer made a £22.5 million windfall out of the merger between Reuters and Thomson that led to the job cuts. So 1,500 relatively poor people become poorer while a rich man, now considerably richer as a consequence, hires a yacht with someone else’s money to entertain some other very rich people. Could there be a more perfect parable for our times?”
A report in the Daily Mail said: “As hundreds of staff sweat over their jobs, Reuters will splash out an estimated £80,000 on boat hire and moorage charges to watch the two-hour race...
“There’ll be no sign of belt tightening as Glocer schmoozes Reuters’ investment banking clients at one of the key events in the European social calendar.
“He’ll need to work as much charm as he can muster – the American must keep his Wall Street customers onside given that the credit crisis shows no sign of ending.”
● SOURCE The Times | Daily Mail
Glocer is entertaining investment bankers during the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend. Reuters sponsors the AT&T Williams team in the Formula One championship.
Under the headline “Tom Glocer sails off on a sea of others’ troubles”, The Times City Diary said: “In an act of callousness that might have brought a blush to the cheeks of Marie Antoinette herself, Tom Glocer, the Thomson Reuters chief executive, has chartered a yacht to moor in the harbour at Monaco just as the newly merged company announces 1,500 job cuts.
“The losses were put down to the urgent need to cut costs, and staffers there are understandably sick to see Glocer, as part of the group’s sponsorship of F1, hire the yacht to entertain investment banking clients to coincide with the grand prix there.
“Thomson Reuters is refusing to comment. Glocer made a £22.5 million windfall out of the merger between Reuters and Thomson that led to the job cuts. So 1,500 relatively poor people become poorer while a rich man, now considerably richer as a consequence, hires a yacht with someone else’s money to entertain some other very rich people. Could there be a more perfect parable for our times?”
A report in the Daily Mail said: “As hundreds of staff sweat over their jobs, Reuters will splash out an estimated £80,000 on boat hire and moorage charges to watch the two-hour race...
“There’ll be no sign of belt tightening as Glocer schmoozes Reuters’ investment banking clients at one of the key events in the European social calendar.
“He’ll need to work as much charm as he can muster – the American must keep his Wall Street customers onside given that the credit crisis shows no sign of ending.”
● SOURCE The Times | Daily Mail
Journalists said to consider strike
Monday 12 May 2008
Thomson Reuters journalists, bracing for job cuts this week, are contemplating strike action over the way managers are slashing costs, The Guardian reported.
Staff expect CEO Tom Glocer to make an internal announcement on how many jobs will be axed before, or most likely on, 19 May, it said.
“Reports from the newsrooms of both (Thomson and Reuters) news wires tell of an increasingly anxious atmosphere as journalists fear they will be forced out of their jobs because management is expected to opt for compulsory rather than voluntary redundancies to cut out overlap,” The Guardian said.
National Union of Journalists officials say managers have so far refused to commit to using voluntary redundancies, it said. “As a result, staff at Thomson have already voted unanimously to hold a strike ballot.
“Last month a separate proposed ballot for industrial action among Reuters staff was suspended by the NUJ pending further negotiations with the management.
“Once they get details on job cuts from Glocer, union members at Reuters and Thomson say they will meet to discuss possible industrial action,” The Guardian said.
It said management will be under pressure to cut as many costs as possible given rising concerns over the outlook for financial markets.
● SOURCE The Guardian
Staff expect CEO Tom Glocer to make an internal announcement on how many jobs will be axed before, or most likely on, 19 May, it said.
“Reports from the newsrooms of both (Thomson and Reuters) news wires tell of an increasingly anxious atmosphere as journalists fear they will be forced out of their jobs because management is expected to opt for compulsory rather than voluntary redundancies to cut out overlap,” The Guardian said.
National Union of Journalists officials say managers have so far refused to commit to using voluntary redundancies, it said. “As a result, staff at Thomson have already voted unanimously to hold a strike ballot.
“Last month a separate proposed ballot for industrial action among Reuters staff was suspended by the NUJ pending further negotiations with the management.
“Once they get details on job cuts from Glocer, union members at Reuters and Thomson say they will meet to discuss possible industrial action,” The Guardian said.
It said management will be under pressure to cut as many costs as possible given rising concerns over the outlook for financial markets.
● SOURCE The Guardian
Bridging the Thomson Reuters gap
Tuesday 06 May 2008
Shares of Thomson Reuters listed in London continue to trade at a huge discount to those listed in Toronto, the Financial Times reported. Dual-listed shares rarely trade perfectly efficiently, the FT’s Lex column said, but a gap of this scale, about one fifth, is unheard of.
Technical factors are at play, the FT said. As Thomson Reuters is a dual-listed company, the only way to unwind the classic merger arbitrage trade – long Reuters, short Thomson – is to sell the shares in London and buy in Toronto. Yet the shortage of buyers in London also reflects very different views of the new company’s prospects.
Traditional Canadian holders of Thomson still view it as a defensive professional publisher while the view from London is that the Canadians have no idea what is about to hit them, the FT said. Reuters is still seen as a hostage to the fortunes of its primary customers, the investment banks. “During the last downturn it was clobbered.”
Chief executive Tom Glocer hopes to work on UK shareholders, the FT said. “Either they don’t get the professional side of the business, or they understand the financials side all too well,” it added.
● SOURCE Financial Times
Technical factors are at play, the FT said. As Thomson Reuters is a dual-listed company, the only way to unwind the classic merger arbitrage trade – long Reuters, short Thomson – is to sell the shares in London and buy in Toronto. Yet the shortage of buyers in London also reflects very different views of the new company’s prospects.
Traditional Canadian holders of Thomson still view it as a defensive professional publisher while the view from London is that the Canadians have no idea what is about to hit them, the FT said. Reuters is still seen as a hostage to the fortunes of its primary customers, the investment banks. “During the last downturn it was clobbered.”
Chief executive Tom Glocer hopes to work on UK shareholders, the FT said. “Either they don’t get the professional side of the business, or they understand the financials side all too well,” it added.
● SOURCE Financial Times
Q1 revenue up 12% to $3.3 billion
Thursday 01 May 2008
Thomson Reuters, reporting its maiden Q1 results, said total revenue rose by 12 per cent from the previous year to roughly $3.3 billion – assuming Thomson and Reuters had existed as a joint company.
Thomson contributed about $1.8 billion to the total – a 10 per cent increase – and Reuters $1.4 billion – 13 per cent higher than Q1 2007.
The company, whose merger was completed on 17 April, said it expects 2008 pro forma revenue growth of 6 to 8 per cent.
“Our combined first quarter results and guidance for the full year reflect the robustness of our business, even in turbulent markets,” said Tom Glocer, CEO.
“Our Markets Division holds leading positions in higher growth segments of the financial markets, including foreign exchange, commodities, energy and emerging markets. Our leading positions in the less cyclical Professional markets of legal, tax and accounting, scientific and healthcare information also grew strongly in the quarter.
“These are high quality businesses with attractive profit margins and strong cash flow characteristics.”
He added: “Thomson Reuters is extremely well-positioned to capitalise on the growing demand across the world’s business and professional communities for intelligent information – insightful, high value content that can be used by human beings and machines. As an enlarged global business, Thomson Reuters will now also benefit from the value created by more diversified revenue streams, a larger capital base and synergies resulting from the combination of our businesses.”
The first Thomson Reuters dividend of $0.22253 per share will be paid on 15 September to shareholders of record as of 21 August. A quarterly dividend of $0.27 per share will be paid in December.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
Thomson contributed about $1.8 billion to the total – a 10 per cent increase – and Reuters $1.4 billion – 13 per cent higher than Q1 2007.
The company, whose merger was completed on 17 April, said it expects 2008 pro forma revenue growth of 6 to 8 per cent.
“Our combined first quarter results and guidance for the full year reflect the robustness of our business, even in turbulent markets,” said Tom Glocer, CEO.
“Our Markets Division holds leading positions in higher growth segments of the financial markets, including foreign exchange, commodities, energy and emerging markets. Our leading positions in the less cyclical Professional markets of legal, tax and accounting, scientific and healthcare information also grew strongly in the quarter.
“These are high quality businesses with attractive profit margins and strong cash flow characteristics.”
He added: “Thomson Reuters is extremely well-positioned to capitalise on the growing demand across the world’s business and professional communities for intelligent information – insightful, high value content that can be used by human beings and machines. As an enlarged global business, Thomson Reuters will now also benefit from the value created by more diversified revenue streams, a larger capital base and synergies resulting from the combination of our businesses.”
The first Thomson Reuters dividend of $0.22253 per share will be paid on 15 September to shareholders of record as of 21 August. A quarterly dividend of $0.27 per share will be paid in December.
● SOURCE Thomson Reuters
CEO declares 3.9% pension increase
Friday 25 April 2008
Tom Glocer announced a 3.9 per cent inflation-linked increase for members of Reuters’ two UK pension funds.
The announcement to more than 600 people at this year’s Retired Members’ Luncheon in London affects members of the Reuters Pension Fund and the Supplementary Pension Scheme.
The increase is in line with the rise in the UK Retail Price Index for September 2007. It is likely to be paid in June and will be backdated to January.
This is the third year in a row that pensions paid by the RPF and SPS final salary schemes have been increased in line with inflation, after increases on pensions earned before 1997 were suspended for the three years 2003-2005.
Inflation protection resumed in 2006, with pensions rising 2.7 per cent in 2006 and 3.7 per cent in 2007.
Glocer spoke about the importance of the Thomson Reuters takeover and its significance in underpinning the company’s commitment to the pension funds.
"Honouring our pension commitments is something we take very seriously and will continue to do so," he said.
He also paid tribute to Patrick O’Sullivan, Reuters welfare officer for retired staff, who is standing down as organiser of the lunch, originally an annual event and now held every two years.
O’Sullivan said that after planning every luncheon for more than 20 years he was looking forward to enjoying the next one as a guest.
Reuters’ host for the Grosvenor House hotel event was Steve Clarke, head of PR, enterprise. Keith Stafford, former editorial training manager/training editor, responded on behalf of pensioners.
Peter O’Neill‘s photo shows Pat O’Sullivan (left) with Tom Glocer.
