Thomson Financial Prospects Detailed at Media Week
In a pedestrian presentation at the UMB Warburg media week conference, Richard J. Harrington, the president and chief executive officer of Thomson Corporation walked the participants through the company�?�s four areas of operations �?� legal and regulatory; learning; financial; and scientific and health care. He had an hour but it took only 50 minutes for the slide show and a less-than-challenging question and answer period to complete the task. It was boilerplate at its finest. As for Thomson Financial (my particular area of interest), the unit sells into a $16 billion market where it accounts for 10 percent or $1.6 billion in terms of 2002 revenues. The industry has been in contraction for the past several years and Thomson Financial was not spared in 2002 when it experienced a three percent decline in revenues. The unit has been positioning itself to better meet the needs of its beleaguered customers in the banking and brokerage businesses by helping to increase their productivity and lower their total cost of ownership. The flagship product is Thomson One, a single delivery platform that�?�s scalable and replaced a hodgepodge of prior platforms. End of commercial.

In the Q&A, the lob ball questions included an update of the status of the Merrill Lynch contract where Thomson Financial is the project manager to develop and implement a new financial workstation for Merrill�?�s US Private Client group. Revenues from that will kick in 2Q04. The UK�?�s Financial Services Authority is looking into the possible elimination of soft dollar commission arrangements. Mr. Harrington said about five percent of Thomson Financial revenues come from such arrangements.

Of note, Mr. Harrington referred to Lou Eccleston, Thomson Financial's head of sales, as "Ecclestein." Let's hope his paycheck is made out to Eccleston.