Oligopoly brief: Thomson Corporation
Companies can, though a process of pick-ups and discards, deal themselves a totally new hand. Thomson, a family-owned media company, started its life as a newspaper group, and is best known for that specialty. The company founded by Canadian press baron Roy Thomson, expanded to the UK in 1956, and one times owned the Times of London, The Sunday Times, and The Scotsman newspapers. It grew large news chains in the US and Canada.
Over the past 10 years in particular, however, Thomson has, through a complex series of acquisitions and divestitures, totally reinvented itself. Now a $7 billion company, it is increasingly specializing in electronic publication for specific professions, mostly financial, legal, educational, and scientific. It depends less and less on publishing on paper, and more and more on pay-for-use Web-based information services. In fact, electronic punlishing makes up over 50% of its total income.
The movement has accelerated over the decade. Thomson sold its interests in over 130 newspapers across North America in 2002, after selling its UK newspapers in 1995. It sold its 20% stake in Bell Globemedia in 2002, owner of the Toronto Globe and Mail and Canadian's leading independent TV network CTV. It also has gotten rid of many of its medial print publications. It also sold its Thomson Travel agency.
Important recent acquisitions
1996
West Publishing (Westlaw law database)
1999
Macmillan Online Reference
2000
La Ley, Argentinean law info
Primark, financial information source
Carson Group, financial information
Dialog, online information services
IOB, Brazilian regulatory information
Wave Technology, training courses
Physicians World, media education
Prometric, computer-based testing
2001
News Edge. Electronic news delivery
FindLaw, another legal database
Some assets of Harcourt General (higher education and corporate training)
2002
Current Drugs, a pharmaceutical database
Gardiner-Caldwell, medical education
McGraw-Hill Lifetime Learning
2003
Elite information Group, software for legal practice management
Delphion Research, patent research
2004
Biological Abstracts, Inc. and BIOSIS, scientific and healthcare publications
The Institute of Canadian Bankers, the education division of the Canadian Bankers Association.
CCBN Inc., financial Webcast service for corporate investor relations
TradeWeb Group LLC, one of the world's biggest online bond trading platforms
Starquote, Canadian financial information provider
Newport Strategies, competitive intelligence for the pharmaceutical industry
Information Holdings, intellectual property and regulatory information.
| Division |
2003 income |
Key brand names |
| Legal and Regulatory |
$3.1 bill. |
Westlaw, Sweet & Maxwell, RIA, Creative Solutions, Elite, Dialog |
| Education |
$2.1 bill. |
Wadsworth, South-Western, Course Technology, Delmar, Gale, Prometric, NETg, Thomson Leaning EMEA |
| Financial |
$1.5 bill. |
Thomson One, FirstCall, Worldscope, Datastream, SEC, AutEx, BETA, IRChannel, Checkpoint, CCBN |
| Scientific and Medical |
$0.7 bill. |
American Health Consultants, Web of Science, Derwent World, PDR, Micromedex, Medstat, Current Drugs |
8:18:06 PM 
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