Thomson Reuters profit tops forecasts

Financial news and information group Thomson Reuters said Friday third-quarter profit rose 25 percent from a year ago to $462 million, led by its financial and audit services. The adjusted profit amounted to 54 cents a share, six cents better than Wall Street forecasts. Revenues fell seven percent from the same period a year ago to $3.22 billion. But without adjusting for currency change, revenue was up one percent. "Third-quarter results met our expectations even as the market environment remained challenging," said James Smith, chief executive. "Our resilient subscription-based businesses performed well, while non-recurring revenues were weaker due to difficult prior-year comparables and lower transaction volumes. That said, we continue to make significant progress toward achieving our operational priorities, and we remain on track to achieve our full-year outlook." The Marketplaces unit, which includes the Tradeweb platform, showed a seven percent increase in revenues, helped by a 2011 acquisition. Revenue from news operations under the Reuters agency, which includes some 3,000 journalists in 200 bureaus worldwide, rose one percent from a year earlier to $79 million. Thomson Reuters was created in 2008 with Canadian media giant Thomson Corp's takeover of British-based Reuters.