Tom Glocer says Thomson Reuters set for growth in 2009

Even though there were big job losses across the financial services industry there would still need to be hirings in new areas, he told Reuters correspondent Mike Dolan at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"The trading of very opaque assets with very wide spreads, I think we'll see those sorts of over-the-counter markets evolve," Glocer said, adding that there will be a need for pricing feeds and infrastructure to accurately price those assets.

"I don't think anybody who's here can in their right mind be optimistic about 2009, either from a global economy point of view or in financial services," he said.

But "in our financial services unit ... we continue to see bright spots right across the world. I'm feeling good about the business.”

Thomson Reuters makes about 60 per cent of revenues and 45 per cent of profits from its markets division, whose customers are mainly banks.

"There's no question that growth has been tempering, it's been coming down,” Glocer said. “But for the company as a whole, we continue to talk about growth in 2009."

He said the integration after Thomson Corp’s $11 billion takeover of Reuters in April 2008 was "going very well".

He also said the company would keep the different listings of its stock in London, Toronto and New York as long as investors demanded it.

"The London listing was left in place to meet the demand. As long as that's the case, there's certainly a rationale for maintaining the listing," he said.

Investors have speculated that the company may drop its London listing as a price gap that opened up on the first day of trading in Thomson Reuters shares in Toronto and London widens. ■