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Tag: Tom Glocer

  • Thomson in £8.8bn bid for Reuters

    MUMBAI:Soon after Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Dow Jones, Canada-based Thomson Corp is in talks to buy Reuters Group Plc for about 8.8 billion pounds ($17.7 billion) to create Thomson-Reuters, the world’s biggest news and financial services company.

    In an announcement to the London Stock Exchange, the two media companies said there was a “powerful and compelling logic for the combination which would create a global leader in the business-to-business information markets.”

    Under the terms of the proposed deal, Reuters investors would get 352-1/2 pence in cash and 0.16 Thomson stock for each share, worth 697 pence a share at Monday’s closing prices, the two companies said in a joint statement. Thomson President and CEO Richard Harrington, who has transformed the company from traditional publishing to an electronic-based business, will retire on completion of the deal, at which point Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer will become chief executive of the combined company.

    Thomson and Reuters said they expected to make over $500 million of annual synergies within three years of completion of a deal. The combined Thomson Financial unit and Reuters financial and media businesses will be called Reuters. The merged entity will adopt the Reuters trust principles aimed at safeguarding the independence of Reuters news, the joint statement said.

    Thomson, Reuters Group PLC and Bloomberg LP all compete aggressively in what is known as the “terminal” market, for the data terminals on desks at the world’s major banks and brokerages. Reuters was the market leader for many years, though it has steadily lost ground to Bloomberg.

    An April report from Inside Market Data Reference said Bloomberg has 33 per cent of the market share, with Reuters at 23 per cent and Thomson at 11 per cent. Thomson has transformed itself in the last decade from an owner of newspapers and other print products. It has built up its legal information business, and is about to sell Thomson Learning, its book division, for about $5 billion.

    Reuters was born in 1851 when Paul Julius Reuter started sending stock market quotations between London and Paris via the new Calais-Dover cable.

    Thomson was started by Roy Thomson, who established a business empire that began with a small radio station in northern Ontario. He bought his first newspaper in 1934.

  • Devin Wenig is Reuters COO

    Devin Wenig is Reuters COO

    MUMBAI: News agency Reuters has appointed Devin Wenig as COO. Wenig is currently president of the business divisions, with operational responsibility for Reuters four divisions: sales and trading, research and asset management, enterprise and media.

    Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said, “I am delighted to announce Devin’s appointment as COO. This is a natural evolution of his current role at Reuters and helps deliver my long-term objective to have the Divisions as the primary operating dimension of Reuters. In his time at the company, Devin has shown great leadership skills, innovative thinking and operational excellence. I am really look forward to working with him closely over the course of the next few years, as we exploit new market opportunities, and capitalise on the strong momentum already evident in the business.”

    Wenig has worked for Reuters for 13 years and was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2003.

  • BBC, Reuters to host global media conference

    BBC, Reuters to host global media conference

    MUMBAI: The power of trust in the media and citizen journalism are among the topics to be discussed by top media names at a two-day forum in London next month, to be hosted by the BBC and Reuters.

    The 2006 We Media Global Forum will bring together personalities from media, business and technology to discuss and collaborate on how the media can foster trust and influence global issues in a world made smaller by the Internet. The Forum takes place on May 3 and 4, presented by The Media Center, a US-based non-profit think tank committed to building a better-informed society in a connected world.

    The speakers include actor Richard Dreyfuss, Google partnerships dierctor Joanna Fields, Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, Meetup.com founder and CEO Scott Heiferman, Al Jazeera DG Wadah Khanfar, Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon, Guardian Newspapers CEO Carolyn McCall, BBC global news director Richard Sambrook, Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger.

    The event will have a live broadcast of the BBC’s World Service programmes, World Have Your Say, and an interactive experience with the Digital Assassins, a group of disruptors and innovators in digital media. Day 2, at Reuters global headquarters in CanaryWharf, includes a series of satellite-linked “town hall” meetings around the world, and an in-depth look by venture capitalists and business leaders at the changing economics of media and value of social capital.

    The Global Forum will offer glimpses of the future in short “Future Forward” segments – first looks at emerging technologies and media from leading developers, entrepreneurs and companies. BBC DG Mark Thompson said, “Trust has always been central to BBC values. We all know the pressures that news organizations face in this fast changing multi-media world. I am delighted to welcome participants to the We Media Global Forum and I hope that it will provide a valuable opportunity for all of us to share our insights.”

    Glocer said, “The balance of power between content creators, suppliers and consumers is changing, with an end to the notion of a passive audience. The ramifications of this new phenomenon are most acutely felt in the area of trust. As consumers, this democratization of media will have profound effects on where we source news and entertainment, and whom we trust. For a company like Reuters, this is a great time to be taking a 150 year-old news brand in exciting new directions.”