By Ken Li and Nick Zieminski; Edited by News Gate Team
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Picture taken January 25, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibous
Reuters, NEW YORK, Feb. 9 – Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO) on Thursday posted fourth-quarter results that were better than expected, driven by cost savings and gains from divestitures, but warned that the state of the global economy was still unstable.
Refinitiv estimates indicate that the news and information company earned adjusted earnings of 73 cents per share, exceeding analyst predictions of 65 cents.
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There are “several signals,” according to Thomson Reuters, which also owns the Westlaw legal database and the Checkpoint tax and accounting service, that the global economy is faltering in the face of rising interest rates, high inflation, and geopolitical threats.
It anticipates organic sales growth in the first quarter to be at the lower half of its 5.5–6.0% full-year objective. The range of organic sales is consistent with the November projection.
CEO Steve Hasker told Reuters in an interview that “as our results and outlook demonstrates, we’re proving to be every bit as resilient as we indicated and have typically been.”
In the fourth quarter, total revenues increased by 3% to $1.765 billion, slightly exceeding Refinitiv’s forecast of $1.760 billion. Changes in exchange rates had a 2-point negative impact on sales growth and a 1-point negative impact on divestitures.
Sales and operational profit increased in four out of the company’s five business divisions, but not in the Global Print division.
The Reuters Events business and the company’s news deal with the Data & Analytics unit of LSEG were the main drivers of the Reuters News division’s total sales increase of 7%. (LSEG.L). About $5.6 billion worth of LSEG shares were owned by Thomson Reuters as of January 31.
To reduce costs, the corporation finished its two-year Change initiative. The corporation stated that it intended to return $2 billion in capital to shareholders after finishing a $2 billion share repurchase program in the second quarter, and it may also consider splitting its stock. It increased its dividend for the thirty-first year running.
Thomson Reuters announced during the fourth quarter that it would pay $500 million in cash to acquire SurePrep LLC, a U.S.-based provider of tax automation software and services. At the beginning of January, that transaction was finished.
Hasker said the business anticipated to seek a few deals this year, including expanding its artificial intelligence capabilities, and that it has around $11 billion in deal-making capacity.
“Over the past few years, we’ve made large investments in AI. Several of our items are run by it, “added said.
By Ken Li and Nick Zieminski; Edited by News Gate Team
