Thomson reorganises in Europe and targets low-cost data provision

Thomson Financial Europe has promoted its sales and trading head, Donal Smith, to the newly created position of chief operating officer as part of a reorganisation today that centralises sales, application and product management, and customer services under four top executives.

Thomson also plans to streamline and simplify its services next year, aiming to supply customers with cheaper data than rivals Reuters and Blooberg. Smith said Thomson is currently reviewing its products and has earmarked a number of them to move onto selected platforms, such as Thomson One for the sales and trading area, First Call Analyst for investment management and Thomson Analytics for the investment banking sector. These platforms will provide access to content and applications from across Thomson Financial.

Smith is now charged with increasing the company's market share and revenues in Europe. He will also run the commercial side of the business and oversee all product development, sales and client support in Europe.

He believes that as the battle for firms' diminishing budgets heats up, Thomson could gain market share as it offers less expensive, content-rich products. “The market data industry is changing,” said Smith. “We are working with customers to help them reduce their current cost base and we are aggressively targeting the institutional space dominated by a duopoly," he added.

Thomson currently has about 6% of trading floor revenues globally and 1% of the market in Europe, according to Inside Market Data Reference. Its main rivals, Reuters and Bloomberg, have 39% and 38% of the global market share, respectively, and 50% and 37%, respectively, in Europe.

The creation of One Thomson Financial, as the effort is called, includes other senior management changes. Sue Lait has been appointed to the newly created position of sales director, Europe, overseeing all sales to financial institutions except for the company's corporate and publishing business. Lait continues to head the European arm of the global strategic account management (GSAM) group, which was created last year to focus on strategic and enterprise sales to Thomson's 50 largest global customers.

Eric Resnick will head application and product management for teams focusing on the investment management and sales and trading communities; while Angela Burdett will have a similar role for investment banking. They both continue to head the investment management and investment banking segments, respectively.

Nick Harrall will oversee the firm's customer services division in Europe as client service director. He will work closely with the investment management, sales and trading, and investment banking client service groups.

All four executives report to Smith, as do the UK and Continental Europe sales teams. Smith continues to report to Jim Malkin, chief executive of Thomson Financial Europe, and Lou Eccleston, president of sales and trading.

Eccleston said he plans to hire an additional 50 to 60 people globally between now and the end of the year to provide sales and training and related support.