Reuters will create 100 new editorial roles around the world and recommence its plan for a paywall under an expansion of its partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
Refinitiv, a former division of Thomson Reuters owned by LSEG since 2021, began a 30-year agreement with Reuters in 2018 to be the exclusive distributor of the agency’s news content to the financial community.
In an expansion of their partnership, announced on Tuesday, they made a joint commitment to invest in 100 editorial roles across the Reuters global newsroom in four main areas: financial markets, mergers and acquisitions, the energy transition, and data visualisation to bring stories to life.
Reuters will also see “significant expansion” in growth markets India and China, including the doubling of the number of reporters covering India and in particular local coverage of forex, fixed income and equity markets, government policy, the regulatory landscape and public companies.
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Meanwhile in China the growth is in its equities coverage, providing complete pre-open to post-close coverage of company and market activity of China’s top 350 listed companies.
The two companies said the new investment would improve the speed and analysis of Reuters’ breaking news offering and increase the value of its financial and market news services.
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Thomson Reuters chief executive Steve Hasker said: “At Thomson Reuters we are committed to investing in world leading journalism and talent, taking our partnership with LSEG to the next level will help us to continue to do just that.”
He added that the partnership would “boost both organisations, delivering an even more valuable news file to LSEG’s customers”.
At the same time, Reuters is returning to its plan for a consumer-facing paywall, an idea that was being pursued in 2021 before it was curtailed by a dispute with financial data provider Refinitiv, a former Thomson Reuters division acquired by LSEG in 2021, over whether introducing subscriptions would breach their news supply agreement.
Thomson Reuters and LSEG have now “agreed on a path forward for Reuters to launch consumer-facing subscription products supporting both parties’ engagement with global professionals,” they said.
Reuters said in 2021 it hoped professional audiences would be willing to pay $34.99 (then £25.38, now £28.59) per month for deeper coverage and data on key business verticals as well as general news and live streams of its events.
Reuters’ free-to-use website is currently the 29th biggest English-language news website in the world, according to Similarweb data analysed by Press Gazette. It received 88.9 million visits in December, up 6% year-on-year.
Also on Tuesday, Reuters said it had integrated the artificial intelligence-powered, real-time financial news service PLX AI into Reuters News and that it was available exclusively through LSEG services. It acquired PLX AI, which already had a partnership with LSEG, in August last year and Reuters said it would expand the service into more markets.
Thomson Reuters is a minority shareholder in LSEG and in December it and investment funds affiliated with Blackstone sold shares they co-own to Microsoft.
“Thomson Reuters plans to use the approximately $1B of gross proceeds from the transaction to pursue organic and inorganic opportunities in key growth segments and provide returns to shareholders,” it said at the time.
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