01 Oct 2019 Thomson Reuters closes deal with Blackstone
Thomson Reuters Corp announced on Monday it had completed the sale of a majority stake (around 55%) in its Financial & Risk unit to private equity firm Blackstone Group LP. The unit will now be rebranded as Refinitiv.
Investors also announced that Refinitiv will invest in multiple businesses, including contents, artificial intelligence and analytics across the Eikon and Elektron platforms for buy-side trading.
As Financial & Risk unit provides data and news primarily to financial customers, the transaction puts co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone CEO, against Michael Bloomberg, former major of New York and founder of Bloomberg, one of the world’s most famous news and data provider. The move, in fact, seems strongly desired by Thomson Reuters, who might want to strengthen its competitive position.