Reuters and Thomson Corporation have ditched plans to use the 'Reuters' brand for their merged financial and media businesses. They will instead use the 'Thomson Reuters' brand for all businesses while internally referring to the two main divisions as 'Thomson Reuters Markets' and 'Thomson Reuters Professional'.
The companies said in May, when outlining the takeover deal, that the Thomson Financial unit would be combined with Reuters' financial and media businesses to form an entity called "Reuters", which would adopt the Reuters trust principles aimed at protecting the editorial independence of news output.
But according to a Financial Times report, Thomson and Reuters have ditched that plan and opted to use the 'Thomson Reuters' name. The decision is thought to be a "sign of the influence" of Woodbridge, the Thomson family investment group, says the report. Woodbridge will hold a 53% stake in the merged group following completion of the deal.
The FT says that staff of the two companies were told that a consultation by a branding agency had concluded that the Reuters name should be used for the group's newswire, but that the Thomson Reuters brand would better reflect "the significant value to be created through this transaction".
Citing a memo to staff, the FT report states that the Reuters News and Reuters Media brands would be retained. Brands such as reuters, Westlaw, CheckPoint, TradeWeb, Lipper and FirstCall would still also be used. But the companies are reportedly still reviewing the Thomson One brand.
Thomson and Reuters said last month that they had "a high degree of confidence" that US and EU regulators would approve the merger and that they expect the transaction "to close early in the second quarter of 2008".
Reuters CEO Tom Glocer told delegates at Davos that he was "absolutely confident" that the deal will be approved "in this quarter".