LONDON - Tom Glocer, a dynamic US lawyer who rose to become boss of the Reuters news agency, is set to lead the world's biggest provider of financial data following a merger with Canadian group Thomson Corp.
Thomson-Reuters will be listed on the London and Toronto stock exchanges and headed by Glocer, who is Reuters' chief executive. Thomson Corp. chairman David Thomson will keep his role after his company takes over Reuters.
Married to a former Miss Finland and a father of two, 47-year-old Glocer trained in business law and joined Reuters in that capacity in 1993.
In a reference to Reuters' British origins, he describes himself as "more like a fairly international American running a very international company that's not particularly British."
He took over as chief executive in 2001 when things were not going well for the company.
There followed five years of turnover decline, with Reuters shares that peaked at more than 17 pounds sterling in the Internet bull market of 2000, falling three years later to barely more than one pound.
Now, spurred by the latest deal, they rose by 3.39 percent to 6.26 pounds on Tuesday.
Glocer apparently courted the Thomson group for two years to buy their financial information division. Things did not turn out that way but the done deal will nevertheless strengthen Reuters' position against its rival Bloomberg.
It will keep Reuters ahead -- if only narrowly -- of its younger, energetic competitor, set up in 1981 by the present mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.
The takeover, pitched at 12.8 billion euros (17.2 billion dollars), will elevate Thomson-Reuters above industry leader Bloomberg into first place in the market.
Thomson-Reuters will have 34 percent of the financial information and data market compared with Bloomberg's 33 percent at present. Reuters currently controls 23 percent and Thomson 11 percent.
Glocer has rejected suggestions that the takeover will effectively restrict competition in the industry to Thomson-Reuters and Bloomberg.
"This is just not a duopoly market as there are at least 20 active competitors, with more entering every day," he told reporters.
In an interview last year Glocer compared the Reuters-Bloomberg rivalry to that between British Airways and its rival Virgin Atlantic.
"I can tell you that British Airways is so much a better company today because of what (Virgin Atlantic chief) Richard Branson did and I hope it's the same thing with Reuters and Bloomberg," he said.
An affable type, Glocer has a habit of entertaining staff to his ideas via e-mails with unexpected wording, including one inspired by Star Wars headed: "The Empire Strikes Back" and concluding with the words, "may the force be with you."
Glocer also has his own blog on which you can find him in company with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Britain's Queen Elizabeth.
For relaxation, his musical tastes stretch from the Grateful Dead to Ravel, via Coldplay, Gilberto Gil and Georges Moustaki.
His reading habits are also eclectic, covering Dostoyevsky, Thomas Mann, Naguib Mahfouz, Albert Camus and Michel Houellebecq.
But for all his relaxed style, Glocer has never feared taking tough decisions.
In 2005 he implemented drastic cost cutting and product expansion, removing Reuters from its headquarters in central London's Fleet Street and into a glacially modernistic environment out east at Canary Wharf.
05/15/2007 19:49 GMT