Reuters Shares Fly on Takeout Approach

Reuters shares are up as much as 30% in London trading Friday morning after rumors the company may be the target of a 600p bid. Traders mentioned Canadian firm Thomson Corp. as a possible buyer, as well as News Corp., who earlier this week made a thus-far unsuccessful bid for the Dow Jones Company. Reuters subsequently confirmed it has received a preliminary takeover approach from an unidentified suitor: "The board of Reuters confirms it has received a preliminary approach from a third party which may or may not lead to an offer being made for Reuters... There is no certainty an offer will be made or necessary approvals, including those required under Reuters constitution, will be received." Under Reuters ownership structure, a single golden share held by The Reuters Founder Share Co., run by 15 trustees, can block a hostile bid. Numis Securities analysts said in a reasearch not they believe Thomson is the most likely bidder, and said the bid was likely to be in the range of 610-660p. Shares were trading at 634p (+29%) at 5:56am ET.

Sources: Reuters
Commentary: Reuters Interested in Dow Jones' Newswires, Indexes [SmartMoney] • Dow Jones Takes No Action on News Corp. Bid; Murdoch Considers Next Tack • Reuters To Launch Algorithmic News Sentiment Tool; Acquires Israeli Digital Text Solutions Developer • Reuters Invests in Pluck, Commits To Blogs
Stocks/ETFs to watch: Reuters Group plc (RTRSY), Thomson Corp. (TOC), News Corp. (NWS). Competitors: Dow Jones & Company Inc. (DJ), The New York Times Co. (NYT)

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