Let's get down to the nitty-gritty
Jinfo Blog

10th March 2008

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Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. The Reuters Thomson merger. Now that the Reuters Thomson merger has got approval we can expect to see the detail of the new company emerge. Just as the journalists at the Wall Street Journal were exercised over the Dow Jones acquisition by News International, Reuters’ journalists will express equal concern over any risk to their jobs. This concern is more justified given the statement by Reuters’ editor-in-chief David Schlesinger that jobs cuts cannot be ruled out. (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=40417) When asked if he could give any reassurance to the journalists Schlesinger said “Change is completely constant in our industry – particularly now – it is completely inevitable. If you look at Reuters over our history, change has been constant. We started as purely a news agency and we haven’t been that for four decades – we’ve expanded into financial information.” No detailed consulation on the journalists’ future has been held with The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), http://www.nuj.org.uk/ which represents many of the journalists who work for both Reuters and Thomson in the UK. However, a meeting is expected in the second week of March with Reuters’ management. According to the article in the Press Gazette the NUJ has already said that it will resist any compulsory redundancies. In the words of Barry Fitzpatrick, the NUJ’s National Organiser for Agencies, “they are looking to management to give a commitment that any redundancies will be voluntary.”(http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=714&string=Reuters) Reuters’ chief executive, Tom Glocer, has shown confidence in the newly merged company by stating that he will re-invest in the newly created company over half of the GBP 22.5m windfall that he will earn as a result of the merger. The total amount of the gain will be dependant on the final Thomson share price when the deal completes. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/03/07/cnreuters107.xml) More information on any potential job cuts was reported in The Guardian on 6th March, which quoted Glocer as stating that: “….there would be job reductions to make an estimated $500m (£250m) in savings but said he hoped these could be achieved through natural attrition with such a large staff. After that, we haven't approached it from a headcount point of view There will undoubtedly be some more people who go as part of this but we're not targeting it. It was not the logic of why we did the deal," Glocer said. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/06/reuters.pressandpublishing1?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront)

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