Thomson Reuters Profit Tops Estimate - Update

(RTTNews) - Financial information provider Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI, TRI.TO) Wednesday reported a marginal increase in second-quarter profit, helped mainly by double-digit growth at its tax and accounting division. Nonetheless, both earnings and revenue for the quarter came in ahead of Wall Street estimates.

The company reiterated its guidance for 2014, while indicating plans to repurchase up to $1 billion of its shares through the end of next year.

Thomson Reuters shares gained more than 3 percent in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

CEO James Smith said, "Our second-quarter results build upon the good start to the year and are consistent with our full-year expectations."

New York-based Thomson Reuters reported quarterly net earnings to shareholders of $249 million or $0.31 per share, compared with $248 million or $0.30 per share in the prior year.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.51 per share, compared with $0.48 per share last year. On average, 16 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.46 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenues from ongoing businesses increased 2 percent to $3.16 billion from $3.11 billion in the prior year, topping analysts' expectations of $3.13 billion.

Revenue at the company's financial and risk division slid 2 percent from a year ago to $1.66 billion, hurt by a decline in both subscription-related and transactions-related revenue.

Tax and accounting revenue jumped 13 percent to $324 million, while intellectual property and science revenue increased 7 percent to $251 million. Legal revenue improved marginally to $850 million.

For fiscal year 2014, Thomson Reuters continues to expect revenues to be comparable to last year's $12.54 billion. Analysts currently project revenues of $12.66 billion for the year.

Thomson Reuters is trading at $38.04, up $1.14 or 3.09%, on a volume of 512k shares.