LONDON - From carrier pigeons to traders' computer screens, the colourful history of media giant Reuters -- which faces a friendly takeover from Canadian group Thomson Corporation -- spans more than 150 years.
In a deal to create the world's biggest provider of financial data, Thomson announced Tuesday that it would buy Reuters for 8.7 billion pounds (12.8 billion euros, 17.2 billion dollars).
Reuters, based in London, was essentially a general news agency serving mainly media around the world until the 1970s when it became a pioneer in the provision of real-time financial data to trading screens.
The group was founded by Paul Julius Reuter, a German-born immigrant who had started out by using pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen in Germany and Brussels.
In 1851, Reuter arrived in London, where he employed a fleet of 200 carrier pigeons to fly stock market data and news information between Dover and Calais.
By the end of the 1850s the network had extended across Europe, and reached the United States in the 1860s, when Reuter made use of telegraph technology.
The next milestone came in 1865 when it rattled European financial markets with the first report of the assassination of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
The death of Paul Julius Reuter in 1899 did not halt the group's rapid development.
Reuters adapted over the next 100 years to incorporate the latest cutting-edge technology, ranging from radio waves, electronic computers and the Internet.
In 1970, Reuters launched VideoMaster -- the first computer screen product which offered traders the latest commodity and share prices.
The group itself floated on the London stock market in 1984.
Reuters' terminals are currently used by around 370,000 business clients around the world, ranging from investment bank traders, stock market brokers and media organisations.
Reuters, best known as a global news and picture agency and headed by chief executive Tom Glocer, derives most of its revenue from selling financial news and data -- just like Thomson Corporation's Thomson Financial division.
The boom in the investment banking industry over the past few years has helped it recover from a torrid time after the post-2001 downturn in the global economy.
Reuters is also reaping the rewards of a strategic programme called Core Plus -- a plan to take the company into higher growth products and emerging markets such as China and India.
In 2006, the company's pre-tax profit jumped by almost a third to 313 million pounds compared with the previous year, while revenues grew 6.5 percent to 2.6 billion pounds.
As the group's recovery has accelerated, it has handed back more money to shareholders, including the first shareholder dividend hike for five years in 2006, followed by another in 2007.
The group employs a total of 16,800 staff in 94 countries worldwide.
05/15/2007 14:33 GMT