With integration over, Thomson Reuters looks to next phase

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson of the Financial Times writes Tuesday about Thomson Reuters Corp., three years after the companies combined.

Edgecliffe-Johnson writes, “It originally promised annualised savings worth $750m, but has steadily raised that forecast, to a rate of $1.7bn by the end of 2011.

“It has spent almost $500m 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 Mr Glocer notes that integration expenses will fall to just $200m in 2011.

“That will help profit margins, which should also bounce back this year, following 2010’s big investment in four new products: Westlaw Next for legal customers, the Onesource global tax workstation, the Eikon financial desktop product and Elektron, an enterprise-wide data distribution platform.

“The group could not have made such investments, which lowered margins by 100 basis points, without its ownership structure, Mr Glocer argues. Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s investment company, holds 55 per cent of its shares.”

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