Big vendor results – a more level playing field?
Jinfo Blog

11th August 2010

By Tim Buckley Owen

Item

Latest financial results from Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis and Dow Jones show a pretty uniform picture of flat or reduced revenues and profits. But there are some bright spots nevertheless. Thomson Reuters’ second quarter legal services revenues were unchanged from the previous period but operating profit dropped by 10%. Seventeen percent growth in subscription revenues for FindLaw (see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e29972 for some background) was offset by a 5% decline in non-subscription revenues and 9% in print products, all reflecting tightened customer budgets. One success story, though, was WestlawNext (see Michele Bates’ posting at http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27853 for background), which has been sold to around 5,700 customers since its launch in February. Meanwhile Tax & Accounting saw 8% growth in second quarter revenues but an 11% decline in operating profit, prompting Thomson Reuters to point out that this is a seasonal business, with nearly 50% of its profit generated in the fourth quarter (http://digbig.com/5bcdyb). Reed Elsevier reported revenue flat for LexisNexis and operating profit down 14%, a result partly of late cycle effects in both the United States legal and international markets. There was also a 19% revenue decline in the troubled Reed Business Information but, with growing data services, a 1% increase in operating profit (see for example Anne Jordan’s posting at http://www.vivavip.com/go/e28061). LexisNexis’s bright spot, though, was growing profitability in its risk solutions business (see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27969 for some earlier background on this). Now Reed Elsevier is pressing ahead with preparations to separate the risk solutions and global legal businesses (http://digbig.com/5bcdyc). News Corporation’s fourth quarter report shows a slight decline in Dow Jones’s operating results compared with a year ago. Increases of 14% in its advertising revenue and 11% in circulation revenue were more than offset by lower contributions from the information services business and a reduction in earnings resulting from the move of the Dow Jones Indexes business last spring to a new joint venture 90% owned by the CME Group (http://digbig.com/5bcdyd). As Dow Jones acknowledged at the time (http://digbig.com/5bcdye), that transaction allowed it to further concentrate on core news and information products including Factiva – and now comes news of the appointment of David Chivers in the newly created role of vice president of Factiva products. According to Dow Jones, he’ll have global responsibility for the strategy, development and management of the Factiva products and of Wall Street Journal Professional Edition offerings in the enterprise – and he’ll be ‘engaging with customers to elicit feedback’ (http://digbig.com/5bcdyf). Information managers can presumably expect a phone call from Mr Chivers some time soon. Meanwhile, though, the current overall picture from these big players of so-so business but hope for the future may help to level the playing field somewhat between them and their leading customers.

« Blog