Thomson: the newspaper dynasty that sold print and bought Reuters

Roy Thomson built a media empire of more than 200 newspapers — including The Times of London, bought in 1966 — plus television and North Sea oil. When he died in 1976, his son Ken took over the family interests at 53 and the Thomson Corporation chairmanship two years later. The inheritance was trophies, not a future: printed newspapers were heading into structural decline.

Ken Thomson spent his chairmanship selling. The Times went to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 1981, the North Sea oil holdings in 1989, Thomson Travel in 1998, and the Hudson's Bay Company retail stake along the way. Through the 1990s he moved the company out of newspapers and into electronic publishing for the financial, legal, health and scientific communities. Rival Conrad Black called the decision to sell the papers and enter online publishing 'a genius move.' By 2005 Thomson Corporation's revenues were $8.7 billion, with $137 million of profit in a single quarter.

The succession was staged with the same discipline. In 2002 Ken stepped down as chairman of Thomson Corporation and installed his elder son David, while retaining the chairmanship of Woodbridge, the family holding company that controlled the corporation. When Ken died of a heart attack at his office in June 2006, Canada's richest man left his son a company already transformed.

The next move belonged to David: in May 2007 Thomson agreed to take over Reuters, the 156-year-old news and data agency. The combined Thomson-Reuters would list in London and Toronto with revenues of about $12 billion and almost 49,000 employees, challenging Bloomberg in the terminals market, where Bloomberg held 33 percent, Reuters 23 and Thomson 11.

Out of newspapers and into data: 2005 revenue of $8.7bn, and an agreed Reuters merger to create a $12bn information group.

The heir sold print into strength rather than waiting for decline, converting trophies into cash while buyers still wanted them.

Control lived in the family's Woodbridge holding company, so a multi-decade pivot could not be overruled by public shareholders demanding shorter-term returns.

Succession was rehearsed: David took the company chair in 2002, four years before his father's death, inheriting a strategy rather than a vacancy.

Electronic publishing looked duller than newspapers — until subscription data compounded into the margin engine that could afford Reuters.

An heir who sells the family's trophies before they decline can fund a business the founder would not recognise. Control through a holding company is what makes such a pivot possible.

The Reuters deal was still awaiting regulatory clearance when announced — Reuters shares had already risen more than 35 percent since the end of 2006 on the prospect — and it would put the family's firm alongside Bloomberg as one of the two dominant terminal providers to banks and traders. The Globe and Mail, which Ken called the jewel of the crown, had already been folded into Bell Globemedia with Woodbridge holding 40 percent, ending the family's dependence on newspapers altogether. What began as a newspaper inheritance ended as a data group with the fourth Thomson generation at its head.