Why sell the most profitable part of the business?
Reuters flogs IP for $3.55bn
Thomson Reuters is selling off the intellectual property and science arm of its business for $3.55bn in cash. The business, which provides information and related services to companies, universities and governments, has 3,200 employees and will be sold to private equity firms Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia. …
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Wednesday 13th July 2016 00:31 GMT ckdizz
Someone just overpaid for stuff that governments are seeking to put on open databases that interact with each other. As it's a private equity firm, you can only assume this is another shakedown and selling off the best of the bunch, rather than deciding to get into the IP business and consolidate TRIP with CPA Global.
A big part of our government's new business number and IP and patent reforms have been to have a database that's natively interoperable with other systems, which spells BANJOED for IP specialists (although that project is a mess right now, obviously). Meanwhile, over in the sciences, the EU is probably going to pull the rug out from underneath the academic journal cash cow, which has the other companies in this area worried, and which has meant they've been unwilling to make these kinds of purchases lately. REXL didn't want it, either, because they don't want to spend big, and the have a genuinely valuable LexisNexis. TR want to concentrate effort on the legal division, which they think will grow.
TR are getting out while they can. All the others that rely on their academic and IP portfolios will be moving out soon too. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
