| overview
landmarks
related:
Bloomberg
Dow Jones
news
services
|
overview
This profile considers the Reuters news, financial data
services and IT research group, absorbed by Thomson in
2008.
It covers -
Information
about other news and data services is here.
the group
Reuters
dates from a text news service founded by Julius Reuter.
In the second half of last century it expanded to encompass
television news and has become increasingly prominent
as a provider of real-time and archival financial information
services, in competition with Dow Jones
and Bloomberg.
During the late 1990s it acquired majority or minority
stakes in a range of information technology research consultancies
such as Yankee Group and specialist market information
services such as Datamonitor.
As of 2000 the group employed around 2,150 journalists,
photographers and camera operators in 190 bureaus, serving
151 countries, with additional personnel in units such
as Yankee. Overall staffing was 18,082 people in 204 cities
in 100 countries, with group revenues of US$5.4 billion.
In 2005 it expanded its image operations with the
multimillion pound takeover of the London-based Action
Images sports photography agency. That deal provided an
archive of seven million sports images stretching over
50 years, with over 1.5m accessible online.
In May 2007 Reuters and Thomson
agreed on terms for a merger to create Thomson-Reuters
PLC, which would be one of the world's three largest financial
information providers. The deal values Reuters at US$17.2
billion, with Thomson shareholders controlling around
70% of stock in the new group.
holdings
As of 2005 Reuters holdings apart from the core news
and financial data services included -
corporate
info services
Reuters owned 100% of ORT,
the dominant provider of corporate information in France
with a major database covering 4 million business entities
in France.
healthcare
sector
Paris-based Agence Presse Medicale (APM)
is concerned with the French B2B professional healthcare
market. Its clients range from hospitals and insurers
to pharmaceutical companies. APM provides real-time
newswire services for nine healthcare niche markets.
Reuters Health Information Inc (RHI) provides global
health and medical daily news services for professionals
and consumers.
other market analysis
Reuters had a minority stake in Datamonitor,
claimed as Europe's largest market analysis company,
offering information on a subscription basis about the
energy, healthcare, financial services, consumer goods,
medical equipment, automotive and high technology sectors.
IT research and consulting
Reuters had a majority stake in high-profile US-based
consultancy Yankee
Group. Yankee is concerned with information technology
research and strategic consulting, including electronic
commerce, wireless communications, computing and enterprise
applications.
It also had a majority stake in US-based TowerGroup,
a research and strategies consultancy concerned with
information technology for the global financial services
sector, including retail and wholesale banking, securities
and investments, insurance, electronic payments, the
mortgage industry and the net.
the founder
Founder (Paul) Julius de Reuter (1816-1899) was born Israel
Beer Josaphat, third son of the provisional rabbi of Kassel.
After working as a clerk in an uncle's bank in Göttingen
he moved to England in 1845, where was baptized as Paul
Julius Reuter. In 1847 he became a partner in Berlin bookshop
and publisher Reuter & Stargardt but encountered difficulties
over distribution of radical pamphlets at the beginning
of the 1848 revolution and moved to Paris, becoming a
translator in Charles Havas' news
agency. He exploited the 100 mile gap between the Franco-Belgian
telegraph and German network, using carrier pigeons to
beat the mail train and moved back to London in 1851,
establishing an office to transmit information between
the London and Paris stock exchanges. He was naturalised
in 1857.
In 1858 he persuaded the Morning Advertiser to
trial his news service and thereafter expanded aggressively,
opening offices across the globe (eg in Alexandria in
1865 and in Bombay in 1866) in pace with development of
international telegraph networks. In 1865 he floated Reuters
as a £250,000 public company to lay its own line
to Germany, making a large profit when that line was nationalized.
set up the Central Press Agency, the first of its kind.
An agreement made with Reuters
Reuter sought success through effective marketing, investment
in infrastructure and personnel, and cooption of competitors.
In 1868 he gave the Central Press Agency - a domestic
news service founded in 1863 by newspaper proprietor William
Saunders (1823-1895) - a monopoly outside London. In 1870
he formed a global alliance with Havas in Paris and Wolff
in Germany (later extended to the US Associated Press
service). In 1871 he was ennobled by Ernst II, Duke of
Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, as Baron von Reuter, being known
as Baron Julius de Reuter.
The following year saw him secure from the Shah of Persia
a concession for exploitation of irrigation, forestry,
mineral rights, customs administration, banking, road
and railway building rights, albeit rescinded shortly
after pressure by Russia. Reuter retired in 1878, handing
control to son Herbert de Reuter (1852–1915).
the Jones era
Reuters' South African executive Roderick Jones (1877-1962)
assumed control of the ailing group in 1915 after Herbert
de Reuter's suicide in 1915. Jones secured covert backing
by the UK government, wound up the public company and
became chief executive, chairman and principal shareholder
of a new Reuters private company. His work in the Ministry
of Information was recognised with a KBE in 1918.
Jones recognised that Reuters was not viable as a vendor
of general news, a difficulty shared by Havas, Wolff and
other agencies - particularly in the face of competition
from the US United Press and Associated Press agencies.
He accordingly emphasised global development of financial
and commodity information services, which Donald Read
notes began to subsidise general news, and use of technologies
such as wireless.
The Press Association, representing UK provincial newspapers,
bought into Reuters in two stages in 1926 and 1930. Jones
quietly made a fortune from sale of his stake, while publicly
proclaiming that the PA move was in the imperial and UK
public interest. He was forced out in 1941 after disagreements
over news management arrangements with the UK government.
Reuters was reorganised at that time as the Reuters
Trust, as cooperative controlled by the London and UK
provincial papers (the national newspapers acquired 50%
of Reuters from the PA at that time). The Australian Associated
Press and New Zealand Press Association become co-owners
in 1947
studies
There has been no major biography of Julius and Herbert
de Reuter. The Power of News: The History of Reuters
(Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1994) by Donald Read is a concise
corporate history of the information company.
For a self-regarding view see Roderick Jones' A Life
in Reuters (1951), offset by the account in James
Lees-Milne's multi-volume diaries. Memoirs by Reuters
correspondents and managers include Henry Collins' From
Pigeon Post to Wireless (1925).
Breaking News: How The Wheels Came Off at Reuters
(Oxford: Capstone 2003) by Brian Mooney & Barry Simpson
is an account of the group's travails over the past decade.
Read and Mooney can be supplemented by works such as Jonathan
Fenby's The International News Services (New York:
Schocken 1986) and Robert Desmond's The Information
Process: World News Reporting to the Twentieth Century
(Ames: Iowa State Uni Press 1978).
The Price of Truth: The Story of the Reuters Millions
(Edinburgh: Mainstream 1985) by John Lawrenson &
Lionel Barber covers the float. Roderick Jones's oleaginous
A Life in Reuters (London: Hodder & Stoughton
1951) is very much a view from inside a well-carpeted
room at the top of the organisation
 next
page (landmarks)
|
|
