Thomson Reuters says growth in foreign exchange, commodities, energy, corporate and emerging markets helped offset weaknesses among its large global investment banking clients in the second quarter.
The vendor is reporting a mixed bag of Q2 results, with profit down a heft 54% after integration costs ate into earnings. But revenue increased 73% to $3.13 billion, mainly because the result included almost a full quarter of revenue from Reuters.
Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer says the strong second-quarter results "reflect continued momentum among our diverse set of businesses" despite the backdrop of a challenging economic environment.
"In markets, we are benefiting from leading positions serving customers in foreign exchange, commodities, energy, corporate and emerging markets, which have more than offset weakness among our global investment banking clients, while our enterprise solutions are seeing strong sales as these large institutions re-engineer their trading operations," says Glocer.
Pro forma revenues for the markets division grew 12% to $2.1 billion. Organic growth was driven by strength in sales and trading, where pro forma revenues were $1.0 billion in the second quarter, an increase of 11% over the prior year.
Reuters says sales and trading growth was driven by treasury - which continued to be boosted by foreign exchange volatility and high transaction volumes - and commodities and energy, which delivered double-digit organic growth and continued to benefit from robust markets.
Despite the postive spin, shares in the group lost some of their shine, as investors fretted about a quarter-on-quarter on decline in organic revenue growth in the markets division, from 9% in the first quarter to 7% in the three months to June 30.
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