Thomson Reuters: Day One

Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org writes Wednesday about the newly combined Thomson and Reuters operations, which makes it the largest business media company in the world.

Ali writes, “The new logo is the orange one you see on the right, and the new joint company site is up as well. The company is defining itself as a provider of ‘intelligent information’ that people will pay for, CEO Tom Glocer told, well, his own company, in an interview.

“Thomson Reuters hopes to have enough diverse products in its portfolio that will help it ride out a financial industry downturn. Shares of the company will start trading in London, Toronto and New York April 17. The shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange; Toronto Stock Exchange; London Stock Exchange; and Nasdaq. Glocer said that despite the downturn, the company was benefiting from ‘hot demand for foreign exchange and energy data and was less exposed to problem areas like mortgage desks than rivals,’ the story said. Not defined yet, but expect some job cuts from the integration; then of course there will be product integration challenges as well, trying to marry the financial products with the professional services.

“On layoffs, a story on TheDeal blog cites a Thomson source which says several thousand layoffs are expected, though not clear on what schedule. There have been some senior exec departures as well, during this merger process: Thomson Financial CEO Sharon Rowlands; Donal Smith, Thomson’s president and COO for EMEA and Asia; and Christopher Hagman, managing director of global sales and service operations at Reuters, the post says.”

Read more here.