Those look­ing for work in busi­ness data and news could be for­giv­en for think­ing that the mar­ket is in the dol­drums, but it seems old faith­ful Thom­son Reuters might just be buck­ing the trend as it records healthy rev­enue growth this sec­ond quarter.

The Man­hat­tan firm with glob­al reach announced recent­ly that rev­enue gen­er­at­ed by ongo­ing busi­ness grew by three per cent to $3.2billion between April and June – entire­ly in line with expec­ta­tions. How­ev­er the big news is that where oth­er cor­po­ra­tions are stalling, Thom­son Reuters have record­ed a 64% increase in prof­its tak­ing the total to a nice round­ed $935million – up from $572million 12 months ago fol­low­ing the sale of its health­care busi­ness to Veritas.

Thom­son Reuters’ com­pa­nies include finan­cial busi­ness­es Thom­son Reuters Eikon and Thom­son Reuters Elek­tron, Reuters News Agency, intel­li­gence firm Cortel­lis, tax and account­ing tools One­Source and Check­point and a range of  health­care solu­tions includ­ing Thom­son Reuters Mar­ketscan Treat­ment Path­ways, Thom­son Reuters Health­care Index­es and the Micromedex Drug Inter­ac­tions App.

The Fig­ures Speak For Themselves

Adjust­ed earn­ings stood at 54 cents per share com­pared with 51 cents for the same peri­od in 2011, four cents clear of ana­lysts’ pre­dic­tions of 50 cents, although rev­enue for the group floun­dered at $3.31billion – down $14million on last year. Although these num­bers might not quite add up to some, it’s worth remem­ber­ing that while oth­er busi­ness­es in the sec­tor are falling by the way­side, record­ing an over­all prof­it is no mean feat as explained by CEO James Smith.

“Our results for the quar­ter and first half of the year were on track,” Smith said.

“Our finan­cial and risk year-to-date rev­enue per­for­mance, though tepid, has held up rel­a­tive­ly well despite grow­ing head­winds in the glob­al finan­cial ser­vices industry.”

Grow­ing Confidence

In July Thom­son Reuters made an offer of $625million for FX Alliance, providers of exchange trad­ing tech­nol­o­gy – the offer equat­ed to $22 a share in cash, for the busi­ness. The com­pa­ny has also entered a deal to pur­chase Mark­Mon­i­tor – a busi­ness ded­i­cat­ed to online brand pro­tec­tion although the terms of the deal have yet to be revealed.

The fact that the com­pa­ny is still will­ing to make pur­chas­es and take risks with its own cash must instil con­fi­dence in share­hold­ers as prices remain sol­id and nev­er real­ly below $27 thanks to this lat­est announce­ment and the impend­ing take overs.

His­tor­i­cal­ly Strong & Future Proof

The Thom­son Cor­po­ra­tion, set up in 1934 in Ontario, spe­cial­ized in pub­lish­ing. Notably the Tim­mins Dai­ly Press and the Scots­man. Own­er Roy Thom­son moved to the UK when he acquired the Scots­man and won the fran­chise for Scot­tish Tele­vi­sion. Fur­ther acqui­si­tions even­tu­al­ly gave Thom­son con­trol of The Sun­day Times and he moved into the air­line and oil and gas indus­tries. The com­pa­ny ven­tured into pub­lish­ing in the late 1980s and pur­chased Reuters in 2008.

Reuters grew in Lon­don as a busi­ness dis­sem­i­nat­ing stock mar­ket quo­ta­tions. It began life in 1851 and by 1865 was the first orga­ni­za­tion to report the assas­si­na­tion of Abra­ham Lin­coln and was even involved in the devel­op­ment of radio.

With such a proud her­itage there real­ly is no won­der the com­bined tal­ents of both com­pa­nies have ensured its con­tin­ued vigour and abil­i­ty to weath­er the finan­cial storm.

Acqui­si­tions still form an impor­tant part of all arms of the busi­ness­es with high-pro­file pur­chas­es includ­ing data min­ing spe­cial­ists Stream­log­ics, which of course can pro­vide solu­tions for train­ing, mar­ket­ing and lead gen­er­a­tion for a wide vari­ety of orga­ni­za­tions across a range of sectors.

Vhay­hu Tech­nolo­gies pro­vide tick data ser­vices, the Hug­in Group dis­trib­utes IR and PR  and Point Car­bon A/S offers news and ana­lyt­ics for the ener­gy and envi­ron­men­tal mar­kets, while RedEgg pro­vides media intel­li­gence to the mar­ket­ing and PR sec­tors. All of these busi­ness­es and many more owned by Thom­son Reuters cov­er a vast range of ser­vices and sec­tors – some of which will be use­ful now, some of which will be use­ful tomor­row, but it seems that through can­ny invest­ment Thom­son Reuters is weath­er­ing the storm and con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide a safe haven for those seek­ing jobs in the media.