Nasdaq Expands Services With Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Deal

By Saabira Chaudhuri

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. has agreed to acquire Thomson Reuters Corp.'s investor relations, public relations and multimedia services businesses for $390 million in cash, as the exchange operator looks to build out its corporate services.

: Bloomberg

The businesses, which have more than 7,000 clients worldwide, will be integrated into Nasdaq’s corporate solutions segment. The segment will become a larger investor-relations outfit and a provider of PR and webcasting services, giving Nasdaq more offerings it can sell to corporate clients.

With trading volume weak, Nasdaq has been working to build up a range of technology and data services and products to sell to its traders and listed companies that create recurring revenue contracts. To do so, Nasdaq has embarked on a series of acquisitions.

This deal is expected to close in the first half of next year and Nasdaq expects it to add to earnings within the first year, excluding transaction-related costs.

“We believe this is an exciting opportunity that will contribute to our ability to grow our business, better serve our customers and create opportunities for our people,” CEO Bob Greifeld said in a statement on Nasdaq’s website.

In October, Nasdaq agreed to acquire the index business of Mergent Inc. in a deal that would make the exchange operator one of the largest providers of dividend-themed indexes.

Meanwhile, Thomson Reuters unveiled a restructuring of its markets business last year amid disappointing early sales of a new markets desktop product called Eikon. It also underwent a major reshuffling of its top leadership ranks, including the departures of several high-level executives.

Thomson has been aiming to focus more on its struggling core financial-markets business. In April, the company said it would sell its health-care business to private-equity firm Veritas Capital for $1.25 billion in an all-cash deal.

This Forum program was open, free of charge, to anyone concerned with investor interests in the development of marketplace standards for expanded access to information for securities valuation and shareholder voting decisions. As stated in the posted Conditions of Participation, the purpose of this public Forum's program was to provide decision-makers with access to information and a free exchange of views on the issues presented in the program's Forum Summary. Each participant was expected to make independent use of information obtained through the Forum, subject to the privacy rights of other participants. It is a Forum rule that participants will not be identified or quoted without their explicit permission.

This Forum program was initiated in 2012 in collaboration with The Conference Board and with Thomson Reuters support of communication technologies to address issues and objectives defined by participants in the 2010 "E-Meetings" program relevant to broad public interests in marketplace practices. The website is being maintained to provide continuing reports of the issues addressed in the program, as summarized in the January 5, 2015 Forum Report of Conclusions.

Inquiries about this Forum program and requests to be included in its distribution list may be addressed to access@shareholderforum.com.

The information provided to Forum participants is intended for their private reference, and permission has not been granted for the republishing of any copyrighted material. The material presented on this web site is the responsibility of Gary Lutin, as chairman of the Shareholder Forum.

Shareholder Forum™ is a trademark owned by The Shareholder Forum, Inc., for the programs conducted since 1999 to support investor access to decision-making information. It should be noted that we have no responsibility for the services that Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., introduced for review in the Forum's 2010 "E-Meetings" program and has since been offering with the “Shareholder Forum” name, and we have asked Broadridge to use a different name that does not suggest our support or endorsement.