April 26, 2024

Media Decoder Blog: Reuters Says New Chief Will Lead Turnaround

9:24 p.m. | Updated

Thomson Reuters said Thursday that it was replacing its chief executive, Thomas H. Glocer, who had struggled to turn around the financial news and information service in an increasingly competitive market.

James C. Smith, Thomson Reuters’s chief operating officer, will replace Mr. Glocer beginning Jan. 1.

The switch comes at a tumultuous time for the company, which has a market capitalization of about $22 billion. In the struggling economy, fewer companies are willing to pay for the financial tools and market analysis that Reuters provides on expensive desktop terminals. Reuters also faces competition from rivals like Bloomberg L.P., FactSet Research System and Dow Jones, part of News Corporation.

Its markets division mainly serves banks and brokerage houses and accounts for 60 percent of overall revenue. The company was late to the market with its Eikon desktop product and, in the view of many clients, it was not up to the standards of competing technology from Bloomberg.

“Thomson Reuters has been losing the bake-off,” said Douglas B. Taylor, the managing director of Burton-Taylor International Consulting, a company that tracks the financial information business. Not only have Bloomberg and, to a smaller degree, other firms been taking customers away from Thomson Reuters, Mr. Taylor said, but the company has also been largely unsuccessful in attracting new clients.

In July, Thomson Reuters announced the departure of a half-dozen executives, including Devin N. Wenig, the market division’s chief executive.

Mr. Glocer, 56, subsequently assumed responsibility for the markets division.

“By the end of this year, the organizational, strategy and budget work I have been leading will be complete and the transition plan I launched last summer will have achieved its objectives,” Mr. Glocer said in a statement. Of his replacement, Mr. Glocer said: “Jim Smith is a very talented executive with whom I have worked closely over the past four years; he is ready to lead Thomson Reuters.”

The announcement came after the markets closed on Thursday.

In 2007, the Thomson Corporation agreed to pay $7 billion for Reuters. At the time many were surprised that Mr. Glocer was picked to lead the combined operation. Richard J. Harrington, Thomson’s chief at the time, retired as soon as the transaction closed.

The Thomson family, through its private holding company, Woodbridge, has a 55 percent stake in Thomson Reuters.

A former journalist, Mr. Smith, 52, joined the Thomson Newspaper group in 1987 and has held several positions, including leading the division that sells tax, legal and accounting products.

David Thomson, chairman of Thomson Reuters, said in a statement: “Tom successfully directed an extensive integration, expanded our business internationally, revitalized the Reuters news organization and championed talent across the entire business.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=7d062c5c5a4ab3575ae59fd2d52b9f60

Advertising: Marie Claire in U.S. Aims at Working Women

The 72-page supplement will be bundled with 435,000 copies of the November issue of the American Marie Claire to be sent to subscribers in the 10 largest markets. The supplement will also be available with 100,000 copies of the issue to be sold at newsstands.

The November issue was selected to introduce the supplement because the issue is devoted to the subject of money. The American Marie Claire is published by a joint venture of Hearst Magazines, part of the Hearst Corporation, and the Comary unit of Marie Claire Album, a French company.

The supplement is named Marie Claire@Work, although given its roots it perhaps ought to be called Marie Claire au Travail. The supplement is described on the cover, which features the actress Katie Holmes, as “your get-ahead guide for career, style and success.”

Among other examples of efforts by publishers to remain relevant, the Meredith Corporation has started a Web site, recipe.com, and acquired two food magazines, EatingWell and Every Day With Rachael Ray, and Food Wine magazine plans to run a 24-page advertorial section in its January issue that will be titled Top Chef Magazine, after the Bravo series “Top Chef,” of which Food Wine is a sponsor.

Also, Bloomberg L.P. is testing Bloomberg Pursuits, a spinoff of its Bloomberg Markets magazine, and Hearst has teamed with Scripps Networks Interactive to bring out two publications inspired by cable channels, Food Network Magazine and HGTV Magazine.

“Print is not dead,” Joanna Coles, editor in chief of Marie Claire and Marie Claire@Work, said in an interview last week.

“Every month, we have a lot of editorial” content “dedicated to career,” said Ms. Coles, who estimated that 87 percent of the readers of Marie Claire — primarily women ages 21 to 34 — work.

Nancy Berger Cardone, vice president, publisher and chief revenue officer at Marie Claire and Marie Claire@Work, said, “When I have a meeting at an advertising agency or media agency, the majority of people sitting at the conference table are women.”

“When Joanna said, ‘What if we did a dedicated supplement for women who are successful and women who aspire to be them?’ ” Ms. Cardone said, she liked the idea at once — even if it meant expanding in a sluggish economy.

“In times of economic uncertainty, that’s when the best innovations happen,” Ms. Cardone said, and it is when marketers need to “keep the right customers coming into stores.”

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The primary advertiser in Marie Claire@Work, with 14 ad pages, is Express, the apparel retailer, which is being billed the “presenting sponsor.” Other ad pages are being bought by Barnes Noble; Bulova, owned by Citizen Watch; the Chevrolet division of General Motors; Cigna; Manilla, a personal account management service backed by Hearst; and Laura Mercier cosmetics.

The ad revenue from the supplement is being estimated at almost $1 million, with Express accounting for more than half. Ad pages in Marie Claire through the first three quarters of 2011 rose 7.6 percent compared with the same period of last year; the supplement will count toward Marie Claire’s fourth-quarter ad-page tallies.

In a nod to the pull of the Internet among the target audience for Marie Claire@Work, there will be a digital edition of the supplement — including three video clips — in the iTunes store and from Zinio. Express, which will be the sole sponsor of the digital edition, is to send it to eight million customers on its e-mail lists.

Also, Marie Claire@Work will be represented on the Marie Claire Web site, marieclaire.com. And Marie Claire will set up a career network on LinkedIn, the business-focused social networking Web site.

Marie Claire@Work is “a brand extension in every platform,” Ms. Cardone said.

Marie Claire would like to publish two Marie Claire@Work supplements next year, she added, in April and November, “and we see it evolving into 2013 with additional frequency.”

Ms. Coles said, “Our dream would be to do it four times a year.”

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In the meantime, there are plans for a speaker series of four events, “Power Lunch With Marie Claire@Work,” which will also be presented by Express. The lunches are to be held in New York in October and November.

And in an offbeat effort to promote the arrival of Marie Claire@Work, there are plans this week to send sponsored manicurists into the offices of 10 leading agencies in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Express, which creates its advertising internally, began buying ad pages in Marie Claire this year. “Our customers are men and women in their 20s, the girl and guy out of college, probably in a first job and discovering the first stage of a new life,” said Lisa Gavales, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Express.

“Marie Claire@Work seemed to be targeting that exact same girl we were interested in,” she added, a shopper who wants to “look professional” when dressing for work but “not look like her mom in a suit.”

As for undertaking a new venture in a dodgy economy, “as we’ve reported for the last couple of quarters, our business is very good,” Ms. Gavales said. “It is not hunker-down time; it is build the brand, build business.”

“In good years and bad,” she added, “there’s always somebody taking market share and somebody losing market share.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=68d5b10014eb57e6f2010275e1d59cc7

DealBook: Bloomberg to Buy Bureau of National Affairs for $990 Million

5:53 p.m. | Updated

Bloomberg L.P., the financial data giant, said on Thursday that it had agreed to buy the Bureau of National Affairs for $990 million, its biggest acquisition.

The bureau’s lineup of news services, which provides legal, tax, regulatory and environmental information to professionals in those fields, is expected to bolster Bloomberg’s existing financial platform and help its Bloomberg Law division compete with legal information services like Westlaw.

The deal also represents the end of an era at the Bureau of National Affairs. Founded in 1926 by David Lawrence, a newspaper reporter who later started a precursor to U.S. News and World Report, the company has been entirely owned by current or former employees since 1947. Bloomberg’s acquisition will cash out B.N.A.’s employees in a deal that is expected to close by the end of the year.

“B.N.A.’s employees have built a superior franchise and we are enthusiastic about a Bloomberg-B.N.A. combination that will deliver more premium content to our professional audiences,” Daniel L. Doctoroff, Bloomberg’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “B.N.A. research and analysis will make Bloomberg’s products even more valuable, and B.N.A. would benefit from our data and technology expertise.”

Under the terms of the deal, Bloomberg will pay $39.50 a share in cash through a tender offer, after which B.N.A. will become a stand-alone subsidiary of the company. The tender offer will begin on Sept. 8.

Bloomberg L.P. is controlled by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who started the company 30 years ago.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e24e1ebd592ec2a91b39966dd3cb2be9

Economix: Do You Have a Question for Mr. Bernanke?

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Ben S. Bernanke at a Fed conference this month in Atlanta.Tami Chappell/Reuters Ben S. Bernanke at a Fed conference this month in Atlanta.

The Federal Reserve enters the age of television Wednesday afternoon. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will hold a news conference after the regular meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee, breaking with the central bank’s tradition of issuing nothing more than a brief, carefully worded statement describing its decisions.

The Fed has made a policy of opacity since its founding in 1913. Congress carefully insulated the central bank from public pressure, and its leaders came to embrace the idea that a lack of clarity amplified its powers by keeping investors off balance.

But times have changed. As I wrote last month when the Fed announced that it would start holding news conferences, “The heated, widespread criticism of its response to the financial crisis has forced the Fed to a recognition that it is ultimately a political institution, and that it must do a better job of building public support.”

So on Wednesday at 2:15 p.m., Mr. Bernanke will make a brief opening statement to reporters gathered in a conference room on the top floor of the William McChesney Martin building. (Not the Fed’s grand headquarters, but the ugly — or Formalist, in the language of architects — modern building just behind it.)

Then he will take questions from reporters.

The event will be broadcast live on the Fed’s Web site and archived for later viewing. The major business networks, including CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg, all plan to cover the event and probably will show at least parts of it live.

I’ll be there and, hopefully, I’ll get to ask a question. So tell me, in the comments below: What should I ask? What would you most like to know?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=dedb6120791446f95539001a14f544e6