Earnings Labs

Thomson Reuters Corporation (TRI)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 13, 2013

$92.59

+3.05%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.93%

1 Week

-0.56%

1 Month

+6.69%

vs S&P

+4.84%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Thomson Reuters Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Results. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Frank Golden, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Frank J. Golden

Analyst · Nomura

Good morning, and thank you for joining us as we report our full year and fourth quarter 2012 results. We will begin today with our CEO, Jim Smith; followed by our CFO, Stephane Bello. Following their presentations, we'll open the call for questions. [Operator Instructions] Now throughout today's presentation, keep in mind that when we compare performance period-on-period, we look at revenue growth rates before currency, as we believe this provides the best basis to measure the underlying performance of the business. In addition, in order to present our results on a like-for-like basis with how you have been measuring the company against the full year 2012 outlook we've provided last February, today's results include Financial Risks Corporate Service business, the disposal of which is expected to take place in the second quarter and several smaller businesses. In 2012, these businesses generated $310 million of revenue, $125 million of EBITDA and $119 million of operating profit. Our website includes detailed restatements of our 2012 results, excluding these businesses, and our 2013 outlook is based on the restated 2012 results. Now today's presentation contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties discussed in reports and filings that we provide to regulatory agencies. You can access these documents on our website or by contacting our Investor Relations Department. Let me now turn it over to the CEO of Thomson Reuters, Jim Smith.

James C. Smith

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Thank you, Frank, and thanks to those of you on the call for joining us. Today, I want to cover 3 topics. First, I'll begin with a review of the full year results. Then I'd like to update you on the progress we've made over the past year against the priorities and strategy I outlined 1 year ago on my first call as CEO, and lastly, I'll provide you with our outlook for 2013. I'll then turn it over to Stephane, who'll review our results for the fourth quarter. But first, let me review our full year 2012 results. 2012 was a watershed year for us. First and foremost, we achieved our targets for the full year for revenue, profit and free cash flow. And while our net sales were lower than anticipated, I am nevertheless proud of this performance. I stated in my opening remarks on last year's fourth quarter call that if anything has been reaffirmed, it's just how strong this business really is. But 2012 will best be known as the year we turned the tide on our Financial & Risk business. More on that later, but we made foundational progress that will pay off in the years to come. The transformation of that business is well underway. Our professional businesses continued to deliver solid results, with revenues up 6%, 2% organic. The net result, both the professional and financial businesses recorded improving customer satisfaction ratings and improving retention rates for the year, 2 key performance indicators essential for our long-term success. Now let's look at the full year results. 2012 revenues grew 3%, driven primarily by our professional businesses: Legal, Tax & Accounting, IP & Science. The Financial & Risk business grew 1%. EBITDA margin rose 100 basis points, primarily due to the elimination of integration…

Stephane Bello

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Thank you, Jim, and it's a pleasure to speak with all of you today. Last year, I began by setting out the priorities for how I would lead the finance organization. What I said at the time is just as true today. It is imperative that the finance organization provides the leadership, control and transparency to support our businesses on the front line everyday. We made good progress in 2012, executing against these priorities, but there is obviously still more to do. Simplification is a key focus and includes simplification around processes, products, systems and even businesses. Jim spoke earlier about some of the accomplishments made last year by our financial business. The progress we have made both with regard to simplifying our product platforms, as well as our back-office systems, including moving the majority of F&R on one order to cash system. We are driving a similar simplification effort across professional businesses. For instance, Legal has been rolling out a more simple and transparent pricing structure for its core research product, and we've also launched an initiative aimed at consolidating over 240 different order-to-cash systems across professional into 1 single system by 2016. We launched this initiative last year in our IP & Science business, and we expect to implement additional deployments in other businesses this year. These are just some examples of the simplification initiatives we are pushing throughout the organization. Today, there is also greater transparency into the financial business. About 75% of its costs are now controllable and visible to the segment managers, who have the authority and accountability to make the day-to-day decisions required to help drive F&R forward. Collaboration has also improved. Where we see opportunities, we are more effectively leveraging assets across the company to drive growth. This is best reflected in the…

Frank J. Golden

Analyst · Nomura

Thanks very much, Stephane and Jim, and that concludes our formal remarks. So we would now like to open the call for questions. So Shannon, if we can have the first question, please.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Drew McReynolds with RBC Capital Markets.

Drew McReynolds - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Just a clarification on the $500 million in proceeds. Stephane, is that net of tax?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

These will be gross proceeds. There would be some tax implication, but we expect it will not be humongous. So the net proceeds will end up being somewhere between $400 million and $500 million, Drew.

Drew McReynolds - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Okay. And just my real question here, Jim, can you just talk a little bit more about the migration plan on to the Eikon platform, post-2013, once all of Eikon is rolled out then? We're just trying to understand with some of your kind of major accounts what that migration timeline would look like?

James C. Smith

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Yes, look, our plan is to migrate as fast as possible, as fast our customers are willing and able to move. I think we're going to be in really good shape to do that, and as evidenced by our ability to onboard the dramatic uptick in that. I don't think we're going to have any gating factors once we get all the platform build-out completed this year. I think the only gating factor will be how quickly our customers can move and how much internal build they have to do and internal modifications they have to do to move on to the new platforms. But I think that's going to be a relatively rapid uptake, dictated by how quickly the customers can move. I can tell you that in our discussions, particularly since the launch of Eikon 3.0, there's pretty solid and unified excitement out there in the customer base and an appetite to move it even more quickly. So I feel pretty confident that, that will move the pace.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Sara Gubins with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Sara Gubins - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Sara Gubins with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

There are a lot of moving parts in 2013, and I'm wondering if you can help us with the quarterly progression of revenue margins and the earnings throughout the year.

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Sara Gubins with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Sure, Sara. I'm going to take that question. We would expect that revenue growth will improve throughout the year, with the first half being the lowest point due essentially to the flow-through from negative sales in 2012 in Financial & Risk. The F&R net sales in the first half of 2012 were quite a bit weaker than in the first half of 2011. Well, if you look at net sales in the second half of last year, while still negative, they were slightly better than in the second half of 2011. So that's why you should see an easier year-over-year comparison as you look at revenue growth on a year-on-year basis, and that's why revenue growth should improve throughout the year. Now if you look at EBITDA margin, they should also improve sequentially throughout the year, with Q1 probably being the low point because of the severance costs that Jim referred to and which we have included in our guidance.

Sara Gubins - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Sara Gubins with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. And then separately, just as I think about net sales and F&R turning positive in the second half, what does that mean for underlying organic revenue growth for us now in 2013 into '14? How long is the lag between that turning positive, witnessing positive growth in F&R?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Sara Gubins with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

I would say if we manage to hit our expectations of turning positive in -- turning net sales positive by the end of the year, that would mean we enter 2014 with good momentum in net sales. And you got to remember that the net sales performance does not include the price increase we get every year. So we can have slightly negative net sales and still be able to generate flat to slightly positive revenue organic growth rate. So because net sales were quite, as I said, negative in 2012, I would expect potentially a revenue decline for F&R this year. But if we ended the year with a positive net sales momentum, that should turn back to positive growth in 2014.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Vince Valentini with TD Securities.

Vince Valentini - TD Securities Equity Research

Analyst · Vince Valentini with TD Securities

Questions also on net sales, a couple of different angles. I guess, if you're expecting the first half to be negative, can you just confirm if January was negative? And any commentary on how it would have fared versus January last year? And secondly, your confidence that you'll have net sales pick up and be positive in the second half of the year, can you give us a little more color what drives that? Is that new products that you're rolling out or is conversations you're having with customers about their demand and appetite or just some more color to give us some sense of how you have that confidence at this early stage in the year?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Vince Valentini with TD Securities

Yes, so Vince, on your first question, net sales were still negative in January, but they were, if I recall, they were a little bit better than last year. And then on your second question...

James C. Smith

Analyst · Vince Valentini with TD Securities

Yes, I'm happy to answer that. I mean, what drives our confidence really is the -- a couple of things, is the momentum that we've built throughout the latter half of last year, the improvement in our customer satisfaction scores and the reaction to the Eikon 3.0 rollout. It's very strong. We're still in the midst of rolling it out to sales forces around the world, but I can tell you that in our early sales conferences, we've got a pretty enthused sales organization out there because of the quality of the product, and we want to demo all of that capability to everyone on the call if you haven't seen it. But on March 22, we'll go deeper in that at our Investor Day, and I think that's what will show you why we have the confidence. It's on the back of the improvements that we made in the product, the improvements that we made in the service for both Eikon and Elektron. We will tell both of those stories at our Investor Day.

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Vince Valentini with TD Securities

And just maybe one thing I would add to that, if I may, Vince. As you have said, that the product is more competitive, which would help if you want growth start improving, but also as you introduce a better product, retention rates should gradually improve over the course of the year. And that's what -- if you recall, that's what we really have seen with WestlawNext. So we expect to see a similar performance for Eikon and Elektron.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley.

Toni Kaplan - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst · Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley

Just directionally, if you had to split out your growth in Legal over 2012, how much was from pricing and how much from taking market share? And then also in Q4, I guess there are a couple of positive data points with regard to demand for Legal services and rates. And so I was wondering if you're viewing the outlook for the legal industry a bit better than it was in 2012.

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley

Toni, it's Stephane. The overall demand for Legal services in 2012 remained pretty weak as it was in 2011 so where we think the growth in our Legal business is really what I tried to describe earlier, which is in these new service and software solution that we provided. That's really the segment that's growing. Core legal research is declining across the board. And essentially, the game here is to move as quickly as possible our revenue mix away from core legal research and into these new services. If I can give you a little bit more specificity, I would say that within core legal research, the piece that's declining the fastest is obviously the print business. And as I described, U.S. print revenues account for about $600 million of the revenue base in Legal. And if you were to exclude U.S. print revenues from our numbers, if you look at the growth of everything else, including online research and the solution businesses, Legal's organic growth rate has been between 2.5% and 3% every single quarter last year.

Toni Kaplan - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst · Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley

Okay. And do you have any color on pricing versus taking share?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley

I think on where you see that share is mainly on core legal research. I don't think there's massive share movements between LexisNexis and ourselves. We are, obviously, the 2 key players. I don't think there is much happening in terms of share one way or the other. And as I said, overall revenue growth rate are actually declining in that business, I think, for both of us.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Andrew Steinerman with JPMorgan. Andrew C. Steinerman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I wanted to talk about the Eikon platform launch from a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to know which segments it covered. I believe it's foreign exchange, commodities, energy and fixed income so I wanted just to verify that. And then what segments still need an Eikon update and what's the plans for any update to an investment management product this year?

James C. Smith

Analyst · weeks ago, I wanted to know which segments it covered. I believe it's foreign exchange, commodities, energy and fixed income so I wanted just to verify that. And then what segments still need an Eikon update and what's the plans for any update to an investment management product this year

Yes, I think you were right at the beginning, but we also -- the rollout also included some really strong upgrades in the equity side as well so -- and something we worked very hard with customers over the course of the past year to build it in. So it's a much, much richer and deeper equities platform as well, and I think I'll come back -- what's left at the end of the year is we're moving in the Investors segment. We've always targeted the end of this year for migrating our Investor products onto the platform, but we've made a major commitment to doing that and to moving everything to the platform. It will be the fourth quarter of this year is kind of the development path for the tools that move into the Investors segment. Although I would have to say that in many Investors segments outside of North America, we're already beginning to sell Eikon as a tool into the Investors segment, particularly in emerging markets. So it's kind of fit for purpose there, depending on the content. So the bulk of the build will be completed throughout this year across all of the areas. And I think in terms of functionality, it's not just the functionality of what we've built into Eikon. It's the fact that we actually for the first time with this rollout, married up the underlying, what were separate Eikon and Elektron platforms, which gave full depth of book to all of our content sets either through to the desktop or either through a feed. And that's a critical piece of our strategy going forward to be able to deliver that, all that content in a joined-up fashion, and that's well underway and very encouraging. Andrew C. Steinerman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And do you expect this Eikon upgrade to have a revenue impact this year?

James C. Smith

Analyst · weeks ago, I wanted to know which segments it covered. I believe it's foreign exchange, commodities, energy and fixed income so I wanted just to verify that. And then what segments still need an Eikon update and what's the plans for any update to an investment management product this year

Well, I guess it will. Yes, I mean, yes. I mean, the revenue impact -- anything we're selling in January will have a revenue impact this year. As Stephane explained earlier, and I think the kind of one of the strengths of our businesses, but one of the facts of our businesses, is that this lagging subscription model that we have takes out a lot of peaks, right? And it takes out a lot of peaks and valleys, and tends to add more stability than many businesses see, but it also means the business is slower to turn into a downturn and slower to climb out of a downturn. And I don't think the Eikon sales this year, particularly early in the year, can offset the negative net sales in the prior periods.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Doug Arthur with Evercore.

Douglas M. Arthur - Evercore Partners Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Doug Arthur with Evercore

Yes, there's been a lot of discussion about Eikon. Can -- turning to Elektron, can you update us sort on the momentum there? Obviously, a lot of cyclical and consolidation issues, your headwinds, but how do you sort of characterize the progress of Elektron?

James C. Smith

Analyst · Doug Arthur with Evercore

In fact, it's been the quiet hero of the business last year. While everybody was talking about the Eikon, Elektron was motoring along, making a heck of a lot of improvements, improving stability, doing the same stuff in customer service and adding features and functionality. And in fact, 2 of our fast-growing units within F&R were both the managed services business in Elektron and the content and data feeds business, both of which were up solidly double digits and both of which have continued strong demand. And as I say, when we do our Investor Day in March, we're going to highlight Elektron alongside Eikon, so you get a full view as to what the features and functionalities we have there, and the potential for that business as well.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from line of Paul Steep with Scotia Capital.

Paul Steep - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division

Analyst · Paul Steep with Scotia Capital

Stephane, I guess just on the F&R, the cost savings from the headcount action that you're going to take, maybe we can handle the following. One, what sort of the timing look like for the implementation? And then if we think, without putting you on the spot for 2014 guidance, but asking you directionally, what's that lift going to look like? Are the savings all going to go right to the bottom line or you're going to reinvest some of the money into the business? And then finally, just clarifying where that charge is going to go, you mentioned it in the guidance, but whether you're going to break it out or it's going to be embedded in the cost base in Q1.

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Paul Steep with Scotia Capital

Sure, Paul. Thank you. That's actually a good question. I'm glad you asked the question. Let me start with the second half, which I think is quite important. The -- this severance cost is going to hit the F&R results. So this is a subtle, but profound change from the way we use to take restructuring costs in the past. We are taking them directly in the business, and the business essentially has to overcome these costs. And the management team at F&R understands that very clearly and is very committed to doing that. So you're not going to see much beneficial impact of the severance action we're taking in F&R this year. We're going to take most of these in the first quarter. Actually, most of the notifications have already come out. But you're not going to see the full benefit impact, the flow-through benefit impact until 2014. But sufficient to say that you've seen our EBITDA margin guidance, and you heard Jim saying that we -- our hope is that we target to, at least, maintain EBITDA margin. Given the negative revenue mix, we're going to -- we always incur in our professional segment. That means by definition that F&R has to maintain margins this year. And so hopefully, that gives you a little bit more color about how that's going to flow through.

Paul Steep - Scotiabank Global Banking and Markets, Research Division

Analyst · Paul Steep with Scotia Capital

Just on the cost save, I guess, the last part of that would just be the clarification of whether or not -- obviously, this year, you're going to look to hold flat. Next year, you'd have the full benefit of that reduction. Are you going to reinvest a portion of that? Like if we said it was one-to-one sort of savings, likely closer to $1.5 to $1 savings or is a portion of that just going to all flow to the bottom line?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Paul Steep with Scotia Capital

Yes, we probably would reinvest some of that. But at the same token, the more transparency we're getting on the cost structure of F&R and the management team -- David Craig and the team have done an exceptional job in getting that transparency in the business. I'd say the more they feel attainable, we feel confident that there is room for us over the next few years to really improve F&R's margins. And that's going to happen as we essentially simplify our product and platform profile and as we eliminate the Legacy platforms. So a lot of the redundancies you've seen this year essentially are related both to kind of middle management type elimination, but also starting to eliminate people associated with specific products and platforms that we're shutting down. So that's going to continue in the years ahead progressively. I can't really give you any specific guidance year-by-year, but the trend will continue.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Peter Appert with Piper Jaffray.

Peter P. Appert - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst · Peter Appert with Piper Jaffray

So Jim, in terms of thinking about the rollout of Eikon, the 40,000-plus users now would represent exclusively existing Thomson customers? Or is there any component that would represent new sales for you guys? And then, I guess, more importantly, related to this, I'm just interested in your take on sort of the evolution in the competitive environment and how you're seeing that currently?

James C. Smith

Analyst · Peter Appert with Piper Jaffray

Sure. About 1/3 of our new Eikon sales are to new customers. About 2/3 of those are upgrades with existing customers, and about 1/3 are new customers. So those are -- and those are competitive wins largely. So I think we're -- again, it is early in the year, right, and it's early in the game. So you never want to be overstating or overly optimistic, I guess, is the word. But I can't help but feel very good about our competitive position. And I can tell you, we're in a heck of a lot better competitive position today than we were 1 year ago today, and we see that in the marketplace with head-to-head competitive wins with all of our key competitors. And spin back 18 months in those head-to-head competitions, we were losing all the time. And as I said in my remarks, we were playing not to lose, how do we hang on? We now have a strong product that allows us to play offense and we like our position. We have a lot of market share to gain out there, and we think we have a strong product to lead with. And what David Craig and the management team in our financial businesses have been emphasizing to the troops for the past several months is we're now back on the front foot, and we're playing offensive again, and we're playing to win. We like that competitive position, and I can tell you we're meeting with receptive audiences out there and we feel far more confident sitting here today than we did last year.

Peter P. Appert - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst · Peter Appert with Piper Jaffray

Jim, just to follow-up to that, any specific feedback from sales in terms of pricing dynamic or features that the customers are coming back to on these competitive wins in terms of what's driving that?

James C. Smith

Analyst · Peter Appert with Piper Jaffray

No, I think it's the mix of all of the above, right? And I think we have always been able to go in with -- particularly on the -- with talking to Eikon, the Eikon product, we've always been able to go in with a superior value proposition. And we could always win over the folks who made purchasing decisions, looking at the total cost of ownership, but now we have a product that appeals to people on the desks, the actual end-users. And that's always been a bit of an issue that we face. We feel very, very good now that we can go in with a product that the end users are going to use with a dramatically improved user interface, with dramatically improved content and with some real game-changing technology in there, backed up by improved customer service. So it's that combination, I think, that gives us confidence this year that we didn't have last year.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of William Bird with Lazard.

William G. Bird - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Analyst · William Bird with Lazard

What needs to happen to hit the top end of your margin guidance range? And where are you in the process of really having an informed view on portfolio decisions given the improved transparency?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · William Bird with Lazard

What would need to happen to hit the high end of our margin projections would be re-strengthening in the environment, in the external environment, which would lead to better transaction volumes, which as you know, flows straight to the bottom line. And what was your second question, Bill, for us?

William G. Bird - Lazard Capital Markets LLC, Research Division

Analyst · William Bird with Lazard

Yes, the second question is just kind of where are you in the process of having an informed view on portfolio decisions? When you set out to improve transparency, my impression was that you would have a better ability to kind of evaluate the businesses you like and the ones you don't.

Stephane Bello

Analyst · William Bird with Lazard

Yes. No, absolutely, good question. Look, it's better and better. The transparency is obviously much better now than 12 months ago. That's really what has enabled us to do some transactions like the sale of our corporate services business. And look, at this point in time, we obviously don't want to be too explicit about what other portfolio moves may come, but I would say we have a good enough transparency to start implementing more of these moves if we wanted to.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank.

Matthew Chesler - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank

On the topic of sort of retiring legacy systems, which you highlighted would happen by the end of the year and presumably would be a benefit to future costs and margins, is there a level of desktops on your Eikon or other products that the ability to do that is tied to?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank

I think you have to look at it really segment by segment. For instance, as Jim said earlier, Eikon 3.0 included a pretty significant upgrade in terms of functionality related to equity, and that is really what we needed to start retiring the Bridge platform. So this is what you're going to see happening sometime in the course of this year. The Bridge platform will essentially be retired. So it's not going to happen, obviously, magically because we achieve a sort of number of Eikon desktop out there. It's going to happen -- it's going to continue to happen over time as we add specific functionality that are currently supported by legacy platforms.

Matthew Chesler - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank

And then your operating, I guess, your cash OI metric, which you guys are now focusing the business more on, what level of growth in cash OI would you -- are you gunning for in 2013?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank

Matt, cash OI is a simple measure, right? And by the way, we call it cash OI. It's really EBITDA minus CapEx. So we give you guidance for both these metrics in terms of what EBITDA margin will do and what CapEx or percentage of revenue will do. For the reasons we've mentioned on this call, including the large severance costs we're going to take this year and also frankly the still low revenue growth we're projecting, we're not expecting a major improvement in EBITDA margin, and we expect to keep tight control on CapEx so that should not -- these 2 assumptions, should not drive big cash OI increases in the course of 2013. But again, as you look at 2014, hopefully, position us to do better improvements.

Matthew Chesler - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank

And just maybe on that broader topic then, as you look at the sort of the delta between your EBITDA and your operating income margin over time, it has widened in recent years. Maybe can you just kind of comment on overall what has been driving that? And when you see that converging again?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank

Yes, absolutely, Matt, and it's an excellent question. If you look at 2012, our depreciation and amortization expense was about $18 million, up in '12 from '11 so it moved from, if I recall correctly, 8.7% of revenue. And for 2013, we are saying it's going to go up again and approach 9.5% of revenue. So effectively, what we see now is a lot of the product development, capital spending that was associated with Eikon and Elektron is flowing through the P&L. Let me give you one interesting anecdote over the 3-year period going from 2009, '10 and '11, we spent close to $0.5 billion on building Eikon and Elektron. During the 3 years, however, the depreciation and amortization expense, we took, because the products, who were not yet in service, was less than $100 million. So that's what's essentially creating the disconnect. What you're seeing is, effectively, the CapEx that we incur back in these years is now flowing through the P&L. This is just accounting. This is just the way it goes. That's why Jim and I are very much focusing the organization on this cash OI metric because we say what matters is what we control today, and what we can control today is the level of CapEx that we incur in 2012 and that we're going to incur in 2013, and that's very much what we are essentially incentivizing the leaders of the business to, which is the difference, what we did in the past. So hopefully, that answers your question, Matt.

James C. Smith

Analyst · Matt Chesler with Deutsche Bank

Yes, I'd like to just add to that. I can't add to the -- that was very eloquently explained so I can't add a specific explanation. But I just wanted to point out that what Stephane just mentioned is fundamentals of the changes we've been trying to drive in this business. And you've heard me talk a lot about the things under our control, and we're on track with the things under our control. And that's exactly why -- we can't do anything about things that happen in prior years that are going to go flow through. But we can focus on those things that are under our control, and we can prove -- improve our visibility into the real dynamics that are driving the top and the bottom line. So that's why we've tried to put more transparency into the various units. That's why we're handling the severance costs the way we're doing them this year. We're not trying to have big buckets and then explain around them. So the greater visibility we can get into the business and our operators can have of their business and those dynamics, the greater transparency we can provide to you. And we're working very hard to get past these historical issues and get to a world where you have greater transparency because we have greater transparency.

Operator

Operator

And our final question comes from the line of Matthew Walker with Nomura.

Matthew Walker - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst · Nomura

It was about where is growth coming from because, clearly, net sales are still negative. They're not going to get positive so where is growth coming from? You have mentioned commodities, energy, data feeds, etc., but is it right that, geographically, though there's quite big differences in the growth of the desktop and how much price increase are you putting through -- how much of the net price increase are you putting through in 2013?

Stephane Bello

Analyst · Nomura

Our price increase in 2013 is essentially something that's included in most of the contracts which we have, which is essentially based on inflation. So it will be probably in the area of 2%, I would say, in Financial & Risk. So that's obviously 1 key element where growth is coming from. And then as you described, Matthew, it's coming from the higher growth segments, the ones that you mentioned. And that's offset by the negative net sales performance we've had in a lot of other segments that I described earlier on this kind of wheel slide I showed during the presentation.

James C. Smith

Analyst · Nomura

Yes, and I would just say, anecdotally, we do see regional differences. We're seeing strong performance, frankly, in the Americas, and we feel very good about that. We're seeing strength in Asia x Japan. In Japan, was certainly challenged last year and continues to be so, and we see the most difficult environment we face, Europe, as Stephane mentioned earlier. So growth comes from both taking advantages of those markets where we can actually sell more and accelerate our positive momentum. The growth also comes from stopping decline in places that are going backwards. So the closer we can get to flat on those drags, then the better our overall growth rate turns out to be. And as Stephane pointed out, it's a really important thing to remember about our business, particularly F&R, these multiyear contracts have built into them price increases year-on-year so we can get revenue lift even without the sales lift.

Matthew Walker - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst · Nomura

I have one quick follow-up, which is on Legal, which is do you agree with Reed and Lexis that when the U.S. economy recovers, core legal research, which includes print, will start growing again? Or has there been a structural change, which may basically mean that's not going to happen even when the economy recovers?

James C. Smith

Analyst · Nomura

Look, there's no question that when the economy recovers, it's a generally more favorable trading environment. What we have seen historically is that those downdrafts that I just mentioned in my prior remark, those downdrafts get lessened. And what we've seen historically is that, for us, print is the first thing that gets hit when you enter into a downturn. And then as general economic conditions improve, print stops getting hit so hard, as people are no longer looking at aggressive cost actions to respond to a downturn in their revenue line. So I think the general environment always helps. That said, I think there have been some fundamental changes in the legal world. And I think legal -- there's particularly large law firms are managed more like other large professional services firms or other large corporations these days, and they're very focused on cost. And I think that we're in a world where that dynamic is never going to go back to where it was 5 years ago. And I think if you look at kind of that core legal research world, that's always going to be an area that's going to be under pressure. And I think it's not going to be the driver of the growth rate that it has been historically for any of us. That's why we are so aggressively moving into other areas of workflow tools and services that we think are higher growth areas in the market than just that core legal research. So short answer is a good economy lift doesn't need to lift all boats, but I think the nature of competition is changing as well.

Frank J. Golden

Analyst · Nomura

So that will be our last question. And we like to thank you, all, for joining us on our fourth quarter call. Let me just repeat what Jim had mentioned earlier that we are going to have an Investor Day in Toronto on March 22. We'll be sending out further details early next month regarding the location, time and so on and so forth. But thanks very much for joining us today, and we'll speak to you again soon.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this conference will be available for playback beginning today at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time, running through Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at midnight, Eastern Time. You may access the AT&T playback service by dialing 1 (800) 475-6701 and entering the access code of 279687. International participants, please dial (320)365-3844 with the access code of 279687. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive Teleconference. You may now disconnect.