Thomson Reuters

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Thomson Reuters Corporation & plc

Type	Public (TSX: TRI, NASDAQ: TRIN, LSE: TRIL, NYSE: TRI)
Founded	April 2008, as Reuters October, 1851 as Stephen Sweet 1799, as Alexander Maxwell 1800, as Sweet & Maxwell 1802
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Key people	David Thomson, Chairman Tom Glocer, CEO
Industry	Media
Employees	50000 approx ^[1]
Subsidiaries	Sweet & Maxwell Reuters
Website	www.thomsonreuters.com

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Thomson Corporation and Reuters agree to merge

Thomson Reuters is a media company created by The Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters on 17 April 2008.^[2]

1 History
2 Company structure
3 Market position and antitrust review
4 Purchase process
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links

[edit] History

See History of Reuters

See History of The Thomson Corporation

[edit] Company structure

Thomson Reuters is a dual-listed company, consisting of Thomson Reuters Corporation, a Canadian company, and Thomson Reuters PLC, a UK company.^[3] The Woodbridge Company, a holding company for the Thomson family, owns 53% of Thomson Reuters.

The chief executive officer of the combined company is Tom Glocer, who was the chief executive of Reuters, and the chairman is David Thomson, who was the chairman of Thomson.^[4]^[5]^[6]

The divisions of the company are as follows:[1]

Thomson's news and financial information arm Thomson Financial has been effectively merged with Reuters to form the Markets Division.

The remaining business units of The Thomson Corporation (Thomson Healthcare, Thomson Legal, Thomson Scientific, and Thomson Tax & Accounting) form the Professional Division.

[edit] Market position and antitrust review

The market of financial data provision is now dominated by two companies, Thomson Reuters with a (combined) market share of 34% and Bloomberg L.P. with a market share of 33%.

The transaction was reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice and by the European Commission. On February 19, 2008, both the Department of Justice and the Commission cleared the transaction subject to minor divestments. The Department of Justice required the parties to sell copies of the data contained in the following products: Thomson's WorldScope, a global fundamentals product; Reuters Estimates, an earnings estimates product; and Reuters Aftermarket (Embargoed) Research Database, an analyst research distribution product. The proposed settlement further requires the licensing of related intellectual property, access to personnel, and transitional support to ensure that the buyer of each set of data can continue to update its database so as to continue to offer users a viable and competitive product.^[7] The European Commission imposed similar divestments: according to the Commission's press release, "the parties committed to divest the databases containing the content sets of such financial information products, together with relevant assets, personnel and customer base as appropriate to allow purchasers of the databases and assets to quickly establish themselves as a credible competitive force in the marketplace in competition with the merged entity, re-establishing the pre-merger rivalry in the respective fields."^[8]

These remedies are viewed as very minor given the scope of the transaction. According to the Financial Times, "the remedy proposed by the competition authorities will affect no more than $25m of the new Thomson Reuters group’s $13bn-plus combined revenues."^[9]

The transaction has also been cleared by the Canadian Competition Bureau.^[10]

[edit] Purchase process

Historically, no single individual has been permitted to own more than 15% of Reuters, under the first of the Reuters Principles, which states that "Reuters shall at no time pass into the hands of any one interest, group or faction." However, that restriction was waived for the purchase by Thomson, whose family holding company, The Woodbridge Company, will end up owning 53% of the enlarged business. Robert Peston, business editor at BBC News, stated that this has worried Reuters journalists, both because they are concerned that Reuters' journalism business will be marginalized by the financial data provision business of the combined company, and because of the threat to Reuters' reputation for unbiased journalism by the appearance of one majority shareholder. Pehr Gyllenhammar, chairman of the Reuters Founders Share Company, explained that the Reuters Trust's First Principle had been waived for the Thomson family because of the poor financial circumstances that Reuters had been in, stating that "The future of Reuters takes precedence over the principles. If Reuters were not strong enough to continue on its own, the principles would have no meaning." He stated, not having met David Thomson but having discussed the matter with Geoff Beattie the president of Woodbridge, that the Thomson family had agreed to vote as directed by the Reuters Founders Share Company on any matter that the trustees deem to threaten the five principles of the Reuters Trust. Woodbridge will be allowed an exemption from the First Principle as long as it remains controlled by the Thomson family.^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]