The Thomson Corporation and Reuters Group PLC merged to form Thomson Reuters in 2008. Thomson Reuters provides information for businesses and professionals in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media market. The company is dual listed with the Thomson Reuters Corporation in Canada and Thomson Reuters PLC in the UK. Publishing is organized into four divisions: Financial & Risk (not included in this ranking), Legal, Tax & Accounting, and Intellectual Property & Science.
Financial & Risk provides news, information and analytics, and regulatory and operational risk management solutions.
Legal produces online and print information, decision tools, software and services that support legal investigation, business and government professionals.
Tax & Accounting provides integrated tax compliance and accounting information, software and services for professionals in accounting firms, corporations, law firms and government.
Intellectual Property & Science serves governments, academia, publishers, corporations and law firms with intellectual property and scientific information, decision support tools and services.
The group also operates Reuters, a provider of real-time news and information services.
A majority of Thomson Reuters is owned by The Woodbridge Company, the Thomson family investment company.
Analysis & Key Developments
Financial
Overall corporate revenues for 2015 were almost flat compared to the prior year at 12.61 billion USD, mainly due to the decline in Financial & Risk, the segment not included in this ranking. Other segments were driven by revenue growth through acquisitions, which resulted in higher revenues in the combined publishing sales from Thomson Reuter’s Legal, Tax & Accounting, and Intellectual Property & Science. Revenues climbed from 5.58 billion USD in 2013 to 5.76 billon USD in fiscal 2014.
Revenues from Legal decreased to 3.35 billion USD in 2015 compared to 3.38 billion USD in 2014 on a constant currency basis. Most revenue came from existing businesses. Allthough subscription revenues increased 3% and transaction revenues increased 7%, driven by growth in international businesses, negative impact came from the US print market, which fell by 6%.
Tax & Accounting revenues increased from 1.37 billion USD in 2014 to 1.42 billion USD in 2015, reflecting contributions from existing businesses.
International revenues increased to 19% of total revenues, up from 18% in 2014, reflecting its strategy to drive growth by focusing on global tax opportunities.
Intellectual Property & Science revenues declined in 2015 to 1 billion USD compared to 1.01 billion USD in 2014. It is presumed that a portion of the segment’s decline in transaction revenues is due to the appreciation of the US dollar.
Internal Organization
Thomson Reuters dismissed 1,000 employees as part of a simplification effort.
International
By geography, revenues accounted for 63% from the Americas (60% in 2014), 27% from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) (30% in 2014), and 10% from Asia Pacific (10% in 2014). Thomson Reuters operates subsidiaries in Latin America, China, India, the Middle East, Africa, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations/North Asia, Russia and countries comprising the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Turkey. Revenues from these geographic areas represented approximately 10% of revenues in 2015 and 2014.
Digital
In 2015, 93% of corporate revenues were derived from information delivered electronically, software and services (92% in 2014), with the remaining 7% derived from print (which is primarily part of the Legal segment).
Thomson Reuters entered a partnership with Bloomsbury to distribute titles from the Bloomsbury Professional business imprint on Thomson Reuters' professional e-reader ProView.
Return to the full listing of the world's largest publishers.
