BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 18, 2000 ISSUE
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS Just the Yank for Reuters Tom Glocer is tech-savvy and--best of all--impresses investors On Dec. 3, when the board of Reuters Group PLC (RTRSY) sat down to pick a new CEO to succeed Peter J.D. Job next July, there was really only one candidate: Tom Glocer. A 41-year-old graduate of Yale Law School, Glocer will be the first American and the first nonjournalist to run the venerable but still formidable British financial-information giant. On paper, Glocer looks like just the man to preside over the shift now taking place at Reuters. The company is spending $725 million over a four-year period to revamp its main businesses. This is a monumental transition from Reuters' proprietary network-delivered system to delivery of the company's products over the Internet and wireless. Glocer is tech-savvy, has the respect of fellow employees and, most important, impresses investors. ''He has a lot of gravitas,'' says Neil Carter, an analyst at ABN Amro in London. ''He is also suited to communicate strategy and lead the troops.'' Being an American doesn't hurt. Reuters' power base may be in Europe, but the U.S. has greater potential as a market for its financial information and trading products. To date, the U.S. has not been as strong as it should be for Reuters. Glocer, currently the boss of Reuters America, is changing that, however. He has presided over a big push to customize information for clients in the equity markets. That tactic is partly in response to the success of Bloomberg LLC in the U.S., which offers pretty much the same high-priced product to all its customers. Reuters is doing very well pushing Reuters Plus, a moderately priced offering for retail brokers that now has 50,000 customers, and Reuters Pro, a service for institutional investors. ''We have to understand the difference between a portfolio manager at Fidelity and a broker at Merrill Lynch,'' says Glocer. For the nine months that ended Sept. 30, the revenues of Reuters America were up 31%, to $1.37 billion. Glocer is a lawyer who knows his technology: He has even written software to help teach litigation techniques in law schools. A relative newcomer to Reuters, he joined the company in 1993 from the white-shoe New York law firm of Davis, Polk & Wardwell, where he worked in mergers and acquisitions. SOUND SHIP. Coming to Reuters was a smart career move. Starting in the legal department, he soon became general counsel and then, in 1996, got his first hands-on management job running Reuters' Latin America operations. By 1998, he had taken over the whole U.S. business and in January of this year added the title of CEO of Reuters Information, the company's largest unit, with $2.3 billion in revenues in 1999. For now, it seems, Glocer will inherit a sound ship. Several years ago, analysts worried Reuters would lose out to the dot-coms in financial data and to electronic crossing networks in stock trading, a field where Reuters' Instinet Corp. operates. Such fears have faded as the dot-coms have crashed and burned and as Reuters' financial staying power and brand name came to the fore. For this year, ABN Amro forecasts a 28% rise in operating profits, to $832 million, on sales of $5 billion. The London traded stock has rebounded, rising almost 50% this year to about $18 a share. Analysts expect that, given Glocer's background, he will be a more avid wheeler-dealer than Job. And Glocer will have plenty on his plate. The company has announced that it will eventually spin off a portion of its Instinet securities-trading system. But since Instinet competes more and more with customers, Glocer may someday be compelled to sell off the whole division. Even so, Glocer's moves may not focus on selling operations in whole or in part. A downturn in the financial markets could force consolidation in the financial information business and bring attractive assets to the auction block. At that stage, it will be up to Glocer to make smart choices. Based on his strong but brief experience, he certainly looks like a good bet. By Stanley Reed in London _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Just the Yank for Reuters TABLE: Reuters' Next Boss INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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