Treasury news editing in shake-up as part of TR integration

The reason is a drive for deeper specialisation and a need to “gear ourselves up for the rapidly changing financial and competitive landscape”, according to an internal memo by Michael Lawrence, global editor, news specialists, Stella Dawson, editor, treasury news, and Keith Mullin, editor in chief, IFR markets.

Treasury news editing is to be divided into economics and financial markets. A new global financial markets editor will be appointed to join the team of global editors with a brief “to elevate our markets coverage; work closely with the business to identify our strategic goals and commercial requirements; deliver on strategic priorities, from communities to market commentators and intra-day analysis; and accelerate our integration with IFR and the other professional teams”.

In what they called a big shift in the way Treasury is structured, the three editors said that as part of the restructuring existing treasury editors will become economics editors to better reflect their area of focus. “We expect them to work very closely with the markets team to retain the investor and markets focus in our coverage of economics and policy,” they said. At the same time, the loans teams with Reuters Loan Pricing Corporation and IFR are being combined and a new loans editor is to be appointed.

“Now that we are One Editorial, we want these teams working together and, when we do, they will be folded under the markets umbrella.

“By bringing markets, RLPC and IFR together under the one specialist editor, we will emphasize the centrality of markets to our coverage - it is the very cornerstone of what we do and the focus for the majority of our financial clients.”

The editors said the restructuring does not reflect any dissatisfaction with the current team or the Treasury news editors. “It’s the result of having more resources with the addition of IFR, the fierce competitive environment, new opportunities that we can explore with the business divisions and the need to accelerate the changes that are already under way. There is a huge amount of work to be done to implement integration and new initiatives such as commentary, communities and chat rooms. Quite simply, we need the additional bandwidth and focus to do that.” ■