Thomson Reuters to cut 2,500 jobs

Global media and financial information group Thomson Reuters said on Wednesday it would cut 2,500 jobs in its risk division by the end of the year as part of a cost-cutting drive. Chief executive James Smith announced the cuts as he released the company's quarterly and annual financial results, saying the move "positions us for far greater improvement in 2014." Smith said 2012 "was a watershed year despite an economic environment that proved to be even more challenging than we had anticipated" and cited "numerous operational issues needing repair." In the company's large financial unit, Smith said, now has "far more rigor, transparency and discipline." He said the unit known as "Finance and Risk" will trim 2,500 jobs by the end of 2013 as part of a drive to boost profits. The move will slash around 11 percent of the finance unit's 22,500 employees and four percent of the company's 60,000 workforce. Reuters said some of the cuts are related to mergers and divestures which make positions redundant. Thomson Reuters reported its profit for the fourth quarter was $372 million, compared with a loss in the same period a year earlier of $2.6 billion due to a large writedown on its financial services business. Thomson Reuters, which is incorporated in Canada and has its headquarters in New York, said its full-year 2012 profit rose to $2.1 billion from $1.4 billion the prior year. The adjusted profit per share amounted to 60 cents a share in the past quarter, slightly better than expected on Wall Street. Revenues fell five percent to $3.4 billion over the quarter and were down four percent for the year at $13.3 billion. Smith said 2012 "will best be known as the year we turned the tide in our financial and risk business. I said last year that our journey would entail a multi-quarter turnaround; we are halfway through that process." Thomson Reuters was created in 2008 with Canadian media giant Thomson Corp's takeover of British-based Reuters. It operates a number of financial and legal information services as well as the Reuters news agency. The media operations represented just a small portion of the company with 2012 revenues at $331 million, from $336 million in 2011. The largest segment, under Finance and Risk, accounted for $7.2 billion in revenues, a drop of one percent over the past year. This includes investors and trading information on equities, commodities and other financial products. Legal services accounted for revenues of $3.3 billion and tax and accounting for $1.2 billion. Shares in Thomson Reuters dipped 2.2 percent to end at $29.97.