Thomson Reuters posts loss, $3 billion goodwill charge

Growth has been much stronger in the businesses that cater to legal, tax and accounting firms, formerly known as the Professional division. Professional revenue grew 9 percent in the fourth quarter before currency changes to $1.5 billion, accounting for 42 percent of total revenue.

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Markets, whose products compete with Bloomberg, Factset Research and News Corp's Dow Jones, posted 2 percent revenue growth before currency changes to $1.85 billion.

As of January, the company merged the two businesses and set up a new organizational structure that includes Legal, Tax & Accounting, Intellectual Property & Science, and Financial & Risk segments.

"The units in the former Professional division continued to perform well and we made significant strides in kick-starting the growth engine in our former Markets division," Smith, who used to run Professional, said in a statement. "We have simplified our organization; we have strengthened our management team; and we are making progress toward improving our execution capability."

Thomson Reuters underwent a series of structural changes and management shakeups in 2011 to address lackluster performance in Markets and a slumping stock price. This resulted in the exit of then chief executive Tom Glocer, who had helped engineer the acquisition of Reuters Group Plc by Canada's Thomson Corp in 2008.

The company reported a $50 million charge in the fourth quarter related to the reorganization of the former Markets business. It said that included severance costs at the corporate level as well as Markets. It did not give the total number of jobs cut.

Adjusted earnings per share, which excludes the goodwill charge, rose to 54 cents from 37 cents a year ago. After also backing out restructuring charges, earnings per share were 59 cents compared with analysts' average forecast of 56 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S which compiles brokerage estimates.

Thomson Reuters said it expects 2012 revenue to grow in the low single digits. Before the results came out, analysts were forecasting 2012 revenue growth of about 2 percent to $13.09 billion.

Revenue from ongoing businesses rose 5 percent before currency changes to $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with analysts' average forecast of $3.3 billion.

The company said Eikon desktops now has 15,000 active users, up from 8,000 on September 30, 2011.