Thomson Reuters shares fall in first day of business

Thomson and Reuters officially tied the knot yesterday morning, and shares in the newly merged global news agency have already taken a battering.

By the end of the day in London, shares in Thomson Reuters had fallen from 1743.75p to 1560p – a slump of around 10.5 per cent.

In a post on the Reuters Editors blog, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said the company would combine the staff and services of the previous Reuters news and from Thomson Financial news operations.

“Most of the difference will be seen immediately on our desktop products for financial professionals, but over time I’m sure you’ll see new bylines and data on our Reuters Media consumer-facing sites as well,” Schlesinger wrote.

The Times, meanwhile, says jobs at the global news giant could be cut “within weeks”. A large number of redundancies is unlikely, but there will be a significant overlap between the two businesses, the paper says.

The Globe & Mail in Toronto reports that the merged company’s chief executive Tom Glocer has confirmd that there will be job losses, but that “he expects them to be relatively minor because there’s little overlap (with the possible exception of real estate)”. Two of the three Tokyo offices are set to be axed, the Globe & Mail reports.