Obituary-Michael Nelson: the Man who Transformed Reuters

Nelson, deputy to Reuters chief executives Gerald Long and then Glen Renfrew - under whom he was General Manager - also led Reuters expansion into photos and television. He not only transformed the news agency’s fortunes but helped revolutionise the workings of markets across the world.

Nelson joined Reuters as a trainee journalist in 1952. He was recruited to Comtelburo, the economic services seen then as being less glamorous than general news.

Initially, he was posted to Asia and in 1956 narrowly escaped being killed in an anti-British riot in Karachi during the Suez crisis.

By 1962 – at the age of only 33 – he returned to London as global head of economic services.

Over the next 20 years, Nelson brought in a succession of computerised and other products for the distribution of financial and economic information.

Earning great profits, these products shifted Reuters emphasis away from that of an old-style news agency dependant on traditional media and ensured that its share flotation in 1984 was a huge success. This in turn generated the rresources for  subsequent expansion.

Before the float, Nelson personally evaluated every technological option and supported selected initiatives, balancing caution and boldness. Reuters had little money to spare, and he couldn’t afford to make an expensive mistake.

Crucially, he made the right call with the decision to develop the Reuter Monitor, thought up by staffer Fred Taylor and his City foreign exchange contact Geoff Bell.

Nelson had the intellectual grasp to understand this radical project and the ability to convince General Manager Gerald Long and a sceptical Reuters Board of Directors, made up of Commonwealth newspaper executives with scant experience of financial markets.

Monitor was conceived in 1972 after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of static currency exchange rates. Currencies were now moving freely against one another in a new, unregulated market.

At the time, Reuters was in a joint venture with Ultronic Systems in the United States, negotiated by Nelson, to operate a stock exchange quotes system, without having to risk capital.

The idea of Reuters developing on its own an international forex network capitalising on the new market opportunity was a risky leap into the unknown.

Challenging the position of existing actors like money brokers, it needed capital for hardware and software, and that meant taking out a bank loan. But it played to Reuters strengths with a global communications network linking editorial operations and a reputation for accuracy, speed and integrity.  After extensive consultations, Nelson took the risk.

To make Monitor work, he recruited a new breed of personnel with experience of project management, computer systems, programming and software engineering.

The Monitor service was launched in London on 25 June 1973, with some 30 clients. Over the next year interconnected host machines were added in New York, Frankfurt and Zurich. Early concerns about reliability and privacy were dispelled.

Monitor and its successors transformed the markets. Reuters created proprietary technology to achieve product advantage before off-the-shelfsoftware and hardware existed.

In his memoir Tales from the South Pier, former Reuters journalist and marketing executive John Jessop calls Nelson the unsung hero of the market-data industry.

“He invariably picked winners,” said Jessop. “These included the Ultronic products, Monitor and the latter’s offspring, the Reuters Dealing Service – all his, and each in its time a commercial coup.”

As well as being the architect of the new financial services, Nelson pioneered innovation in multimedia. He was behind the acquisition of UPI’s international photo service to create Reuters News Pictures and the takeover of Visnews to create Reuters Television.

Born in Beckenham on the outskirts of London on 30 April 1929, Nelson was the son of a carpenter. He was 10 years old at the outbreak of the Second World War, a cataclysm that marked his generation. After grammar school in London, he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, to read Modern History. His tutor there was the renowned but controversial historian A.J.P. Taylor.

He joined Reuters after graduation in 1952.

When he retiredf in 1989 Nelson divided his time between homes in Notting Hill, London, and Opio, France. He drew on his education as a historian and wrote the first of his five books, War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War. This chronicled the postwar period when the West used radio to penetrate Eastern Europe and undermine Communism.

Three of his other books were about the French Riviera.

His memoir Castro and Stockmaster: A Life in Reuters weaved financial stories (Stockmaster refers to an early system that predated Monitor) with tales of his travels and extraordinary meetings, including the night he and his wife spent in Havana with Fidel Castro.

The proceeds from this book were donated to a Pakistani charity in recognition of the Karachi taxi driver who saved Nelson’s life when he was attacked during the 1956 anti-British riot.  

He is survived by wife Helga, sons Patrick and Paul and daughter Siobhan.
  ■