The story
The Thomson Corporation grew from a single Canadian newspaper, the Timmins Daily Press, acquired in 1934 by Roy Thomson (later to become 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet), into a global media concern. Thomson acquired his first non-Canadian newspaper, the Independent of St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1952. He was told by the UK Government that to qualify for a peerage, in keeping with other press barons in London, he would have to reside in the UK.
Accordingly, he moved to Edinburgh and invited newspaper owners to sell to him. In this expansion in the United Kingdom the first to come forward and be bought was The Scotsman in 1953. He had no experience of television but saw the profits it made in the US and successfully founded Scottish Television in 1957, locating its headquarters and studios in the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. He founded the Thomson Organization in 1959 and acquired Kemsley Newspapers. In the 1960s, Thomson's UK publishing realm expanded to include Thomson Publication (UK), a consumer magazine and book publishing house, and The Times. By 1965, Thomson had acquired Thomas Nelson, Michael Joseph, and Hamish Hamilton. However, Thomson had to divest it majority ownership in Scottish Television. In 1965, Thomson Newspapers, Ltd. was formed as a publicly traded company in Canada.
Roy Thomson's prolific endeavours in publishing earned him the hereditary title Lord Thomson of Fleet in 1964. Thomson acquired The Times in 1966. Thomson's interests moved beyond publishing with the creation of Thomson Travel and acquisition of Britannia Airways in 1965 and 1971, and a foray into a consortium exploring the North Sea for oil and gas. Thomson used its oil profits to buy small newspapers in the United States, starting with the acquisition of Brush-Moore Newspapers in 1967 for $72 million, at the time the largest sale of newspapers. By the end of the 1970s, Thomson Newspapers' circulation in the United States had surpassed the 1 million mark. In 1974, it was rumored to be planning a takeover of Speidel Newspapers. The Thomson Organization was reorganised into the International Thomson Organization in 1978 in order to move its operating base from Britain to Canada, so that it would not be subject to British monopolies legislation, foreign‐exchange controls and dividend limitation. The International Thomson Organization and Thomson Newspapers merged in 1989, creating the Thomson Corporation. Over the years, the company has withdrawn from its holdings in the oil and gas business, the travel industry and department stores.
When Kenneth Thomson took over from his father Roy in 1976, the company was worth about $500 million. At Kenneth's death in June 2006, the company was valued at about $29.3 billion.
Transition to business information
In 1978, the acquisition of Wadsworth Publishing provided Thomson with its first entry into specialised information, college textbooks and professional books. (In 2007, Thomson Learning, including the Wadsworth imprint, was sold and renamed as Cengage Learning.) Thomson Newspapers expanded in 1980 by acquiring FP Publications, owner of The Globe and Mail. However, in 1981, Thomson sold The Times and The Sunday Times to News International. In 1985, Thomson sold its trade book division (Michael Joseph, George Rainbird, Hamish Hamilton, and Sphere) to Penguin Books.
Starting in the mid-1990s, Thomson invested further in specialised information services (but this time providing them in digital format) and began selling off its newspapers, with large sales in 1995, 1996, and 2000. David and Frederick Barclay acquired The Scotsman in 1995. That was about the time Richard J. Harrington, an accountant, became chief executive officer of the company. One of the first moves came when Thomson spent $3.4 billion to acquire the West Publishing Company, a legal information provider in Eagan, Minnesota. Thomson sold The Globe and Mail to Bell Globemedia in 2001.
In recent years, Thomson provided much of the specialised information content the world's financial, legal, research and medical organizations rely on every day to make business-critical decisions and drive innovation. While it remained a publishing company, early and aggressive investment in electronic delivery had become a key company goal. "Except for its educational division, which still publishes a substantial number of conventional textbooks, Thomson had the good fortune to move into these businesses as customers were demanding electronic delivery of their information", according to a 3 July 2006 article. "In some markets, Thomson was able to move past other players who were more cautious about digital conversion."
In 2003, the Thomson Corporation bought the Chilton automotive assets. Also in 2003, Thomson acquired the software company Elite Information Group and medical education company Gardiner-Caldwell. Also in 2003, Thomson sold its medical magazine publishing units to Advanstar Communications. Thomson also acquired the publisher Techstreet.
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In 2004, Thomson acquired Tradeweb. In late 2004, the company sold its Thomson Media group to Investcorp. The B2B publishing group, which features such titles as American Banker, National Mortgage News, and The Bond Buyer, was renamed SourceMedia.
In 2005, Thomson acquired medical education company Physicians World.
In October 2006, the company confirmed it would sell the Thomson Learning market group in three parts. The first part, corporate education and training (NETg), has agreed to be sold to Skillsoft for $285 million. Apax announced its acquisition of Thomson's higher education business on 11 May 2007, for $7.5 billion in cash assets.
In 2007, Thomson sold Thomson Medical Education (including Physicians' World and Gardiner-Caldwell) to private equity firm ABRY Partners. The group was renamed KnowledgePoint360.
From Wikipedia’s article on Thomson Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4