FT marks a Reuters milestone

“Some 157 years after Paul Julius Reuter abandoned a trial with carrier pigeons and began telegraphing share prices between the London and Paris stock exchanges, Reuters’ newswire business accounts for less than 7 per cent of its revenues, writes Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.

“Last night, as the company’s journalists faced the prospect of becoming an even smaller part of a larger empire, they met at The Old Bell, their favoured pub when they were based on Fleet Street - once the heart of London’s newspapers and agencies.

“The gathering, described as ‘a wake’ by some insiders, came the day before a celebration at the ExCel centre in Docklands for more than 3,500 staff.

“The Thomson takeover, which will see the company’s far smaller wire business merge with Reuters media division, has triggered many staff moves and renewed questions about morale that last surfaced when the shares touched 100p in 2003.

“Some of the rumblings boil down to annoyances such as changes of e-mail address, but there is another factor, according to David Anderson, editor of IMD Reference.

“‘Anecdotally, one of the worries doing the rounds has been that because Reuters share options would vest, a lot of them [the staff] would become pretty well off and could depart,’ he said.” ■