The company is still recovering from last year’s economic
downturn, which put a crimp in budgets at many of the law firms and financial
institutions that it counts as customers. Because it provides many of its
services on a subscription basis, the falloff in new orders last year has
continued to drag on revenue.
Still, CEO Thomas Glocer said Thursday that Thomson Reuters
expects to return to revenue growth in the third quarter. The company has said
that growth in the second half of the year will leave full-year revenue flat to
slightly down.
For the second-quarter ended June 30, Thomson Reuters booked
earnings of $290 million, or 35 cents per share, down from $315 million, or 38
cents per share, a year earlier.
Stripping out one-time items, the company says it would have
earned 47 cents per share, down from 58 cents.
Revenue slipped 2 percent to $3.22 billion.
The results fell slightly below Wall Street expectations.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were looking for
earnings of 48 cents per share and revenue of $3.23 billion, on average.
The company’s Professional division, which includes services
for law, tax and accounting firms and for the health care and sciences
industries, grew revenue 2 percent to $1.39 billion. However, operating profit
slipped 10 percent to $386 million, led by a decline in legal.
In the Markets division, which includes financial products
such as trading terminals and the Reuters news service, revenue slid 4 percent
to $1.83 billion. The unit’s operating profit fell 25 percent to $319 million.
