The battle for control of the lucrative financial news market took a turn last night when Reuters appeared willing to recommend an offer from Canada's Thomson Corporation.
The 156-year-old British-listed news and data provider confirmed yesterday that it had received a preliminary approach. The unnamed bidder is understood to be Thomson, the family-controlled Canadian owner of Thomson Financial, a smaller rival to Reuters and Bloomberg.
The approach to Reuters was described yesterday as "friendly" but success will hinge on whether the two sides can convince directors of the Founders Share Company, a body set up to safeguard Reuters' independence, that its editorial integrity would not be compromised.
News of the approach follows an unsolicited $60 a share offer earlier this week for Dow Jones from Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, which valued the owner of the Wall Street Journal, the largest US business newspaper, at $5 billion.
Mr Murdoch said after his approach became public that "the great thing" about financial information assets was "that you can charge for it" in contrast to more easily commoditised and pirated media content.
Combining Reuters and Thomson Financial would create a group with a larger share of the market data industry than Bloomberg, the current market leader founded by Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York.
Thomson shares were down 1 per cent at $47.93, valuing the group at $28 billion. Reuters shares closed up 123½p or 25 per cent at 615¾p in spite of its warning that the bid was at a preliminary stage, giving the company a market capitalisation of £7.75 billion .
Thomson's approach would be funded in part by the sale of Thomson Learning, its educational publishing unit, for as much as $6 billion.
Thomson Financial has been expanding under Sharon Rowlands, its chief executive.
This month Thomson Financial will start selling a new global news service built on the back of AFX, the financial newswire service it bought for an estimated $20 million last year, as it attempts to compete more effectively with rival Bloomberg.
The approach comes at a time when Reuters is undergoing a recovery engineered by Tom Glocer, the first chief executive of the venerable group to have no reporting experience.
- (Financial Times service)
