Thomson Corp.'s acquisition of Reuters Group plc closes Thursday, 11 months after the
deal was announced. The new company, to be known as Thomson Reuters, will mark the occasion with internal observances and external announcements. Here's a quick rundown of what's known about the combination, what we might find out tomorrow and what might be at the top of the company's integration to-do list.
Structure: Two parent companies -- Thomson Reuters Corp. and Thomson Reuters plc --
listed on four exchanges (Toronto, NYSE-Euronext, Nasdaq and London) and 53% controlled by Woodbridge, the Thomson family holding company.
Management: Tom Glocer, former Reuters CEO, will be CEO of the new company. Devin Wenig, former Reuters COO, will run the financial information arm. The two former M&A lawyers previously engineered a
Reuters turnaround that was prelude to the Thomson sale, described in this 2005 Corporate Dealmaker article.
Branding: At one point, the financial info arm looked like it would go to market under the Reuters brand, but it's now set to be known as Thomson Reuters Markets, with a new orange
logo to be unveiled tomorrow, according to a paidContent post.
Regulatory requirements: Contrary to some discussion after the deal was announced (some of it in this 2007
Corporate Dealmaker article),
regulatory conditions are light, limited to sales of copies of several databases.
Departures and layoffs: There have already been several of the former, and according to one former Thomson exec, several thousand of the latter are expected, though it's not clear on what schedule. According to a Feb. 1 post on Waters Street Grid, the most
high-profile departures revealed so far are those of 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.
Integration challenge No. 1: Though both organizations have changed a lot in recent years as each tried in its own way to form a cohesive whole from disparate parts, their cultures remain quite distinct. The former Thomson exec puts it this way: "Reuters manages to the top line. Thomson manages to the bottom line." Where Reuters might historically have been more likely to invest to grow a potential business organically, Thomson's preference would have been to buy a proven business and then control costs. It's an approach with roots in Thomson's history as a holding company for a wide variety of businesses.
Integration challenge No. 2: Do they blend the mostly complementary financial information offerings of each side, even though that would make it hard to charge the previous full price for each? Says
Tabb Group CEO Larry Tabb: "You don't want to sacrifice revenue." -
Kenneth Klee
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Cuong Viet Do
And the winners are...
It comforts me to hear that some top executives have to loose their jobs too - though they usually walk away with a lot of money that they dont feel the layoff. These exec have been outsourcing jobs to the overseas and their actions are rewarded with tax incentives----Give me a break..........
Long live middle class!