
Thomson Reuters Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2021 Results
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The information in this section is forward-looking. Actual results, which will include the impact of currency and future acquisitions and dispositions completed during 2022 and 2023, may differ materially from the company’s outlook. The information in this section should also be read in conjunction with the section below entitled “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements, Material Risks and Material Assumptions.”
Dividends and Share Repurchases
The company announced today that its Board of Directors approved a 10% or $0.16 per share annualized increase in the dividend to $1.78 per common share, representing the 29th consecutive year of dividend increases. A quarterly dividend of $0.445 per share is payable on March 15, 2022 to common shareholders of record as of February 24, 2022.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, the company completed a previously announced plan to buy back up to $1.2 billion of its common shares. This buyback program was in addition to the $200 million repurchase program that was completed earlier in 2021. As of February 7, 2022, Thomson Reuters had approximately 486.2 million common shares outstanding.
In 2021, Thomson Reuters returned a total of $2.2 billion of cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) Ownership Interest
In January 2021, Thomson Reuters and private equity funds affiliated with Blackstone sold Refinitiv to LSEG in an all-share transaction. Thomson Reuters indirectly owns LSEG shares through an entity that it jointly owns with Blackstone’s consortium and a group of current LSEG and former Refinitiv senior management.
As of February 7, 2022, Thomson Reuters indirectly owned approximately 72.4 million LSEG shares which had a market value of approximately $7.0 billion based on LSEG’s closing share price on that day. The company received $51 million of dividends from its LSEG investment in June 2021 and an additional $24 million in October 2021.
In March 2021, as permitted under a lock-up exception, Thomson Reuters sold approximately 10.1 million LSEG shares for pre-tax net proceeds of $994 million. Over the course of 2021, Thomson Reuters paid $223 million of tax on the sale of these shares and used the after-tax proceeds to pay $627 million of tax that became payable when the Refinitiv sale closed. In 2021, the company paid $850 million of taxes related to these transactions.
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is a leading provider of business information services. Our products include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news service – Reuters. For more information on Thomson Reuters, visit tr.com and for the latest world news, reuters.com.
NON-IFRS FINANCIAL MEASURES
Thomson Reuters prepares its financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
This news release includes certain non-IFRS financial measures, which include ratios that incorporate one or more non-IFRS financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA and the related margin (other than at the customer segment level), free cash flow, adjusted EPS, accrued capital expenditures expressed as a percentage of revenues, selected measures excluding the impact of foreign currency, changes in revenues computed on an organic basis as well as all financial measures for the “Big 3”. Thomson Reuters uses these non-IFRS financial measures as supplemental indicators of its operating performance and financial position as well as for internal planning purposes and the company’s business outlook. Additionally, Thomson Reuters uses non-IFRS measures as the basis for management incentive programs. These measures do not have any standardized meanings prescribed