Reuters Revenues Hit By Slump In Online Broking
Still reeling from discouraging preliminary results and a shareholder revolt at its AGM last week, Reuters yesterday announced a 13% fall in group earnings for the first three months of 2003.
Reuters has been hit by the decline in the markets which has reduced demand at Instinet, the company’s electronic securities trading unit (see Reuters Tumbles Into H2 Loss, Hit By Instinet), and faces keen competition from the likes of Bloomberg and Thomson.
Last week, Reuters reported a 10% drop in underlying first quarter earnings, excluding Instinet business, to £670 million (see Bleak Outlook Persists For Reuters). Under the “Fast Forward” plan, some 3,000 redundancies have been made and chief executive Tom Glacer has vowed to make cost savings of £440 million by the end of 2005 (see Reuters Chief Sees No Signs Of Recovery As Losses Soar). However, investors have expressed anger at the high level of executive pay at a time when the company is supposed to be economising.
The company’s share price stood at 128p at 3pm today, up 8.5p since the start of trading.
