By Keach Hagey
Thomson Reuters is considering a sale of its Corporate Services division, which offers online information and tools for investor relations and public relations professionals, according to people familiar with the matter.
|
The business, which is worth about $100 million, the people say, is part of the Investors segment of Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk division. The Investors segment saw revenues decline 1% in the second quarter of this year, compared to a year earlier.
Thomson Reuters doesn’t break out results for the Corporate Services division separately.
Corporate Services’ global managing director, Steve Roycroft, departed earlier this year.
Several other parts of Thomson Reuters are already on the sales block. In February, the company announced it planned to sell its Tax & Accounting division’s Property Tax Services, its Legal division’s Law School Publishing business and its Financial & Risk division’s eXimius business, a workflow application that is part of its retail wealth management organization. These businesses had $155 million in revenues in 2011, according to a company statement.
The company announced on Wednesday that it had entered into a binding agreement to sell the Property Tax Services division to Ryan, a tax services firm. The other two businesses remain unsold.
Thomson Reuters’ profits rose 64% in the second quarter, helped by no longer having to pay integration expenses from its merger, but revenue in its core business of serving financial professionals, which makes up more than half of the company’s revenue, declined 3%.
Thomson Reuters competes with Dow Jones & Co, publisher of Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.