
Thomson Reuters Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2019 Results
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The company’s Outlook contains variousnon-IFRS financial measures. The company believes that providing reconciliations of forward-lookingnon-IFRS financial measures in its Outlook would be potentially misleading and not practical due to the difficulty of projecting items that are not reflective of ongoing operations in any future period. The magnitude of these items may be significant. Consequently, for Outlook purposes only, the company is unable to reconcile thesenon-IFRS measures to the most comparable IFRS measures because it cannot predict, with reasonable certainty, the 2020 impact of changes in foreign exchange rates which impact (i) the translation of its results reported at average foreign currency rates for the year, and (ii) other finance income or expense related to intercompany financing arrangements. Additionally, the company cannot reasonably predict the occurrence or amount of other operating gains and losses, which include fair value adjustments relating to the warrants the company holds in Refinitiv as well as gains or losses that generally arise from business transactions that the company does not currently anticipate.
ROUNDING
Other than EPS, the company reports its results in millions of U.S. dollars, but computes percentage changes and margins using whole dollars to be more precise. As a result, percentages and margins calculated from reported amounts may differ from those presented, and growth components may not total due to rounding.
REVISION OF PRIOR-PERIOD FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
Since October 1, 2018, the company has included its share ofpost-tax losses from its 45% interest in Refinitiv, an equity method investment, in its net earnings. As initially disclosed by the company on October 31, 2019, a misstatement was identified in the third quarter of 2019 that understated the company’s share of Refinitiv’spost-tax losses since the fourth quarter of 2018. The misstatement related to an accounting principle difference for preferred stock issued by Refinitiv to the Blackstone consortium between U.S. GAAP, the basis on which Refinitiv prepares its financial statements, and IFRS, the basis on which Thomson Reuters prepares its financial statements. The misstatement, which does not impact revenue, operating profit, segment measures, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS, cash flow from operations or free cash flow, was immaterial to the company’s previously issued financial statements. As the correction of the cumulative misstatement in the third quarter of 2019 would have been material to net earnings in the quarter, the company revised its previously issued financial statements. In conjunction with correcting this misstatement, the company corrected other unrelated misstatements in the applicable prior periods which were also not material to the company’s previously issued financial statements. Specifically, the company reclassified certain revenue and expenses which pertained to the accounting for foreign currency in hyperinflationary economies between the third and fourth quarters of 2018, but these revisions had no impact on the company’s 2018 audited financial statements.
The company previously posted revised prior-period financial information related to the reclassification of certain third-quarter and fourth-quarter 2018 revenues and expenses in the “Investor Relations” section of its website, ir.thomsonreuters.com. The company revised its previously issued financial statements for the nine months ended September 30, 2018, the year ended December 31, 2018, the three months ended March 31, 2019 and the six months ended June 30, 2019. The impacts of the revised prior-period financial information posted on the Thomson Reuters website was also filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities and furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Information contained on Thomson Reuters website is not a part of this news release and is intended to be an inactive, textual reference only.
SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS, MATERIAL RISKS AND MATERIAL ASSUMPTIONS
Certain statements in this news release, including, but not limited to, statements in the “Business Outlook for 2020” section, Mr. Smith’s comments, the number of LSEG shares that Thomson Reuters is projected to indirectly own upon closing of the transaction, the company’s current expectations regarding the timing for closing of the proposed LSEG/Refinitiv transaction, and Refinitiv’s belief regarding achieving its full annual cost savingsrun-rate target by the end of 2020, are forward-looking. The words “expect”, “believe”, “target” and “will” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. While the company believes that it has a reasonable basis for making forward-looking statements in this news release, they are not a guarantee of future performance or outcomes and there is no assurance that the proposed LSEG/Refinitiv transaction will be completed or that any of the other events described in any forward-looking statement will materialize. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations. Many of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions are beyond our company’s control and the effects of them can be difficult to predict.