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Thomson Corporation

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The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organization and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to form Thomson Reuters . The Thomson Corporation was active in financial services, healthcare sectors, law, science and technology research, as well as tax and accounting sectors. The company operated through five segments (2007 onwards): Thomson Financial , Thomson Healthcare , Thomson Legal, Thomson Scientific and Thomson Tax & Accounting.

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38-652: Until 2007, Thomson was also a major worldwide provider of higher education textbooks, academic information solutions and reference materials. On 26 October 2006, Thomson announced the proposed sale of its Thomson Learning assets. In May 2007, Thomson Learning was acquired by Apax Partners and subsequently renamed Cengage Learning in July. The Thomson Learning brand was used to the end of August 2007. Subsequently, on 15 October 2007, Educational Testing Service (ETS) finalized acquisition of Thomson's Prometric . Thomson sold its global network of testing centres in 135 countries, for

76-486: A duopoly with Pearson in the market and would have used McGraw-Hill as the merged corporate name with Michael Hansen as CEO. It is estimated Cengage has 24% of the market while McGraw-Hill has 21%, Pearson, the current market leader, has about 40 percent of the market and Wiley has about 7 percent. The merger was called off on May 1, 2020. In August 2021, Cengage rebranded as Cengage Group. In addition to organic growth, Cengage has expanded through acquisitions within

114-416: 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,

152-433: A large amount of debt through the course of its initial buyout and subsequent acquisitions, and had seen declining revenue through a shrinking market for paper textbooks. Cengage Learning filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 on July 2, 2013. Cengage Learning emerged from bankruptcy on April 1, 2014, eliminating approximately $ 4 billion of its funded debt and securing $ 1.75 billion in exit financing. Post-bankruptcy,

190-631: A larger reliance on information technology services and products. On 1 January 2004, Thomson adopted a new accounting standard, which required restatement of all prior periods. The company restated its financial reports accordingly. Members of the last board of directors of Thomson were as follows: David K.R. Thomson (chairman of the board since 2002), W. Geoffrey Beattie , Richard Harrington, Ron D. Barbaro , Mary Cirillo , Robert Daleo , Steven Denning, Maureen Darkes , Roger Martin , Vance Opperman , John M. Thompson , Peter Thomson, Richard Thomson and John A. Tory . The Thomson family owned 70% of

228-528: 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'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

266-486: A reported $ 435 million. Prometric now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of ETS. On 15 May 2007, the Thomson Corporation reached an agreement with Reuters to combine the two companies, a deal valued at $ 17.2 billion. On 17 April 2008, the new company was created under the name of Thomson Reuters. The chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters is Jim Smith, and the chairman is David Thomson , formerly of

304-475: A subscription service that allows students to pay for access to the company's entire digital higher education catalog by the semester or year, rather than buying individual textbooks. This service became available during summer 2018, and was reported to be "in line with expectations" with its initial sales goal. The University of Missouri is the first university to offer this plan to all students, effective January 2019. International Thomson Publishing entered

342-685: A subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group , known as Refinitiv ), Checkpoint, EndNote (now produced by Clarivate , an independent company), Derwent World Patents Index (now produced by Clarivate), SAEGIS (now produced by Clarivate), MicroPatent , Aureka (now owned by Clarivate), Faxpat , OptiPat , Just Files , Faxpat , OptiPat , Just Files , Corporate Intelligence , InfoTrac (now owned by Cengage ), Delphion , Arco Test Prep (now owned by Cengage), Peterson's Directories (now owned by Cengage), NewsEdge , TradeWeb , Web of Science (now produced by Clarivate) and

380-459: A target Enterprise Value of $ 100–5,000 million. Apax raises capital for its investment funds through institutional investors including corporate and public pension funds , university and college endowments , foundations and fund of funds . In 1972, Ronald Mourad Cohen and Maurice Tchénio founded the advisory firm Multinational Management Group (MMG) in London, Paris, and Chicago, marking

418-626: Is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London , England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York , Hong Kong , Mumbai , Tel Aviv , Munich and Shanghai . As of March 2024, the firm had raised and advised funds of approximately US$ 77 billion. Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis. Apax invests across four sectors: technology , internet/consumer, healthcare and services. It looks for investments in

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456-552: Is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and has some 5,000 employees worldwide across nearly 38 countries. It was headquartered at its Stamford, Connecticut, office until April 2014. Gale is Cengage's library reference arm and specializes in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses. The company creates and maintains databases that are published online, in print, as e-books and in microform. On December 5, 2017, Cengage announced Cengage Unlimited,

494-668: 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

532-1011: The Arden Shakespeare (now published by Bloomsbury Publishing ). Thomson formerly owned Jane's Information Group , now owned by Montagu Private Equity . These information sources are produced by the many companies of Thomson, including West Publishing , Thomson Financial , ISI (now owned by Clarivate), Thomson Gale (now owned by Cengage), Dialog Corporation (now owned by Clarivate), Brookers, Carswell , CCBN, Course Technology (now owned by Cengage), Gardiner-Caldwell, IHI, Lawbook Co, Wadsworth (now owned by Cengage), Thomson CompuMark (now owned by Clarivate) and Sweet & Maxwell . Thomson Reuters New Zealand Limited has been publishing and updating information on New Zealand law since 1910, formerly as John Friend Ltd, to Brooker and Friend Ltd, to Brookers, to Thomson Brookers'. Thomson had divested many of its traditional media assets – or combined them with digital products – and had moved toward

570-622: The Thomson Corporation , with an estimated value of up to US$ 5 billion. The company was bought by a private equity consortium consisting of Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners for US$ 7.75 billion, and the name was changed to Cengage Learning on July 24, 2007. In 2007, Cengage Learning sold Peterson's to Nelnet . In 2011, Cengage Learning acquired the National Geographic Society's school publishing unit, and combined this school business with

608-535: The West Publishing Company , a legal information provider in Eagan, Minnesota . 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

646-666: The Global ELT business to create and launch the National Geographic Learning brand. The global brand combined the former Cengage Learning ELT and National Geographic School Publishing imprints and sub-brands under one unified identity. In September 2013, David Shaffer retired as chairman of the company. He had previously been executive vice president of The Thomson Corporation from 2005 to 2006, and then President and CEO of both Thomson Publishing International and Thomson Learning. The company had acquired

684-623: 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. 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 ,

722-761: The Thomson Corporation through a family-owned entity, the Woodbridge Company , based in Toronto . (Along with 70% of Thomson Corporation, Woodbridge also owns a 40% stake in CTVglobemedia , which now owns the Globe and Mail daily newspaper in Toronto and CTV , Canada's largest commercial TV network.) David K.R. Thomson and his brother, Peter Thomson , became co-chairmen of Woodbridge after their father's death. Apax Partners Apax Partners LLP

760-640: The Thomson Corporation. Although it was officially a Canadian company and remained Canadian owned, Thomson was run from its operational headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut , in the United States. 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,

798-592: 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. 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

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836-782: 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

874-661: The United States. In March 2006, Alan Patricof left Apax. In 2006, Apax Partners in London and Apax Partners France in Paris became independent. Apax Partners France rebranded to Seven2 in 2023. The circumstances surrounding the demerger, transfer of assets and subsequent collapse of the British United Shoe Machinery in 2000 led to questions about Apax's behaviour being raised in Parliament by MPs of both main parties. After calls for an enquiry into

912-481: The Wadsworth imprint, was sold and renamed as Cengage Learning .) 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. 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

950-511: The beginning of Apax Partners. In 1977, they formed a partnership with early venture capitalist Alan Patricof , who founded Patricof & Co in New York in 1969. The new firm would be known as Alan Patricof Associates (APA) and ultimately come to be known as Apax Partners ( apax means "unique" in classical Greek). Throughout the 1980s, the firm grew steadily raising capital under a series of separate funds. In 1991, Apax Partners became

988-718: The company decided to focus on developing digital study guides and other educational supplements, as well as hard-copy textbooks. The company moved its headquarters from Stamford, Connecticut , to Boston. In January 2015, they announced expansion of their LearnLaunch Accelerator program, which provides seed funding and intensive coaching to promising startups, to the University of Chihuahua in Mexico. In November 2016, Cengage Learning rebranded as simply Cengage. In May 2019, Cengage announced its potential merger with another major publisher, McGraw-Hill Education , thereby creating

1026-571: The company. When Kenneth Thomson died in June 2006, control of the family fortune passed on to David K.R. Thomson under a plan put together decades earlier by company founder Roy Thomson . "David, my grandson, will have to take his part in the running of the organisation and David's son, too," Roy wrote in his 1975 autobiography. "With the fortune that we will leave to them go also responsibilities. These Thomson boys that come after Ken are not going to be able, even if they want to, to shrug off these responsibilities." The Thomson family controlled

1064-505: The loss of hundreds of pensions were refused, Ros Altmann , the pensions expert and, as of 2015, UK Pensions minister described it "one of the worst cases ..I have seen ..the actions of the former owners – Apax have been immoral." The Member of Parliament Ashok Kumar said, "I think these people needed flogging ..these are greedy, selfish, capitalists who live on the backs of others." Following its sale of Wind Hellas in 2007, Apax and Hellas co-owner TPG were sued by former bondholders of

1102-646: The official name for all of its European operations however the U.S. business still operated under the Patricof & Co. name. By the mid-1990s Apax had become one of the larger private equity firms globally. In 2001, Patricof & Co. adopted the Apax Partners branding and formalized its affiliation with its European business. In 2002, Apax Partners LLP was established. In 2005, Apax announced it would acquire middle market leveraged buyout firm Saunders Karp & Megrue to augment its buyout business in

1140-407: The periods cited in some of the lawsuits. (In 2005 a New York judge awarded $ 56 million to some of these bondholders, made against Hellas Telecommunications Finance and Hellas Finance, rather than Apax or TPG). Other lawsuits related to Apax and TPG's ownership of Hellas are being heard in the United States. In December 2015 a separate legal action brought by the liquidators of Hellas Telecommunications

1178-587: 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. In the 1960s, Thomson's UK publishing realm expanded to include Thomson Publication (UK), a consumer magazine and book publishing house, and The Times . In 1965, Thomson Newspapers, Ltd. was formed as

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1216-502: The publishing business by buying Wadsworth Publishing in 1979. In 1981 International Thomson purchased the publishing operations of Litton Industries , including Van Nostrand Reinhold and Delmar. International Thomson acquired reference publisher Gale Research in 1985. International Thomson acquired South-Western Publishing from SFN in 1986. In 1992, Thomson acquired Course Technology. In 1995, Thomson acquired educational reference publisher Peterson's . In 1997, Van Nostrand Reinhold

1254-431: The publishing industry. Notable acquisitions include: The company's product lines include 4LTR Press, Aplia, Cengage Learning PTR, Chilton , Education To Go, Gale , Milady, MindTap, and National Geographic Learning. Since 2015, South-Western products have been branded as Cengage Learning. Cengage Unlimited, a SaaS solution, launched on August 1, 2018. In 2016, based on its 2015 revenues, Publishers Weekly ranked

1292-427: The telecom company, who allege that Apax and TPG unjustifiably enriched themselves from Hellas and misrepresented the true state of its accounts. Apax has countered that some of these bondholders only began their dispute after passing up on the chance of selling prior to the bankruptcy of 2009, and that Apax sold the business in 2007 (almost three years before the bankruptcy) and so was not the legal owner of Hellas during

1330-400: Was dismissed by a Luxembourg court. In February 2018 the liquidators abandoned their UK case against Apax and TPG after four days of trial. Cengage Learning Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for higher education, K–12 , professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world. The company

1368-653: 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

1406-559: Was renamed KnowledgePoint360. Some of Thomson's brands are better known than the company name itself. Its brands include Thomson ONE , Westlaw , FindLaw , BARBRI , Pangea3 , Physician's Desk Reference (now published digitally as the Prescriber's Digital Reference ), RIA , Thomson Tax and Accounting ( tax and accounting software and services for accountants), Creative Solutions, Quickfinder, DISEASEDEX (now merged with IBM Watson Health ), DrugREAX, Medstat, Thomson First Call (now

1444-430: Was sold to John Wiley & Sons . In 2000, Thomson Learning was created out of a restructuring of International Thomson Publishing. Later that year Thomson acquired the higher education title of Harcourt from Reed Elsevier , and the test prep publisher Arco from IDG Books . In 2002, Wadsworth acquired F.E. Peacock Publishers. It was announced on October 25, 2006, that Thomson Learning would be offered for sale by

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