Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters faces scrutiny

Thomson Corp.’s $17.6-billion takeover of Reuters Group announced Tuesday now faces scrutiny from antitrust regulators and unions unhappy about expected job cuts.

The renamed Thomson-Reuters Corp. would reduce the number of major companies providing financial data, news and trading systems to the financial services industry from three to two and vault it slightly ahead of the current market leader, privately held Bloomberg.

The deal received the backing of trustees of the Reuters Founders Share company, a crucial first step in creating the world’s largest financial news provider. The trust, which controlled what is known as a “golden share,” was set up when Reuters was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1984 to safeguard the editorial independence of its journalism.

The Thomson family of Canada, which would have a 53% majority stake, agreed to adopt the Reuters Trust Principles as long as it controls Thomson-Reuters, the companies said.

Reuters Chief Executive Tom Glocer, 47, who would head the combined company, said some “realignment” was likely to occur to meet a goal of $500 million in cost reductions over three years. But he played down the prospect of large-scale job cuts, pointing to the fact that Reuters had already made cost savings totaling about $1.8 billion over the last five years.

Reuters journalists , however, expressed their “deep concerns” in an open letter to Pehr Gyllenhammar, chairman of the trustee company, “over whether a reconstituted Reuters would maintain the high standards of journalism and the integrity, independence and freedom from bias that have shaped the company’s 156-year-old reputation and are crucial to its future success.”