Thomson Reuters Market division streamlines, slims
Jinfo Blog

By Nancy Davis Kho

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The Markets division of Thomson Reuters, which contributes nearly 60% of the company's revenue, is undergoing a major shakeup as five key executives were shown the door last week. Head of the division Devin Wenig is leaving, along with Reuters Media president Chris Ahearn, Global Sales and Customer Service managing director Joerg Floeck, Investment & Advisory president Eric Frank, Chief Marketing Officer Lee Ann Daly and Global Head of Human Resources John Reid-Dodick.  

According to the company's press release, Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer has signalled that he will take direct responsibility for the division rather than hiring a replacement for Wenig.            

The move is regarded as a reaction to ongoing slow growth for the division, which was created out of the Thomson/Reuters merger in 2008.The reorganised division will be restructured from five into three units:  Financial Professionals & Marketplaces, Enterprise Solutions, and Media. Presumably, this streamlined approach will assist the division in completing Job One: gaining marketshare for its Eikon platform, which rolled out last autumn. The new platform is designed to combine the best of the Thomson and Reuters solutions for financial professionals as well as to incorporate social media functionality.

However, analysts say that the rollout has been slower than expected; an article on Friday in the Toronto Star reports that, according to an internal company memo, "the company has migrated to Eikon only about 24,500 of the roughly 500,000 users of its legacy products, and Eikon brought in only about 3,500 new users". Between the economic downturn and Bloomberg's comfortable hold on market share, the battle for Eikon's success was never going to be easy.

Now, with Glocer making the product his own responsibility, all eyes will be on Eikon.

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