Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Thomson Reuters first quarter 2015 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. If you should require assistance during the call, please press star and then zero. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference over to our host, Mr. Frank Golden, Senior Vice President Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning and thank you for joining us as we report our financial results for the first quarter. Our CEO, Jim Smith will start today’s discussion followed by Stephane Bello, our CFO. Following their presentations we will open the calls for question and we would appreciate if you would limit yourselves to one question each in order to enable us to get to as many questions as possible. 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, and it’s also the basis on which we provide our 2015 outlook. 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. I would now like to turn it over to Jim Smith.

Thank you, Frank and thanks to those of you on the call for joining us. Today we will begin with a review of the first quarter results and I will also outline our three strategic priorities for the year. Now, to the results for the quarter. As I stated in our earnings call in February, we have made significant progress, putting the company back on a solid footing, and you can see that in the numbers we report today. We are off to a solid start to the year, both operationally and financially. Importantly, we are on track with our expectations for the balance of the year. Our guidance for the year is to return to positive organic revenue growth on a constant currency basis. And based on our results thus far, we continue to believe that will be the case. Now, as we pointed out last quarter, in light of the increased volatility in foreign currency markets we cautioned that FX would have a higher than usual impact on our results in 2015. That indeed proved to be the case in the first quarter. Therefore, I will provide you with both our reported results for the quarter, and our results before currency, enabling you to see the underlying progress we are making. Revenues were down 3% on a reported basis but were up 2% before currency, a full 500 basis point swing due to currency in the quarter. EBITDA was down 2% with a margin up 20 basis points on a reported basis. Before currency, EBITDA was up 4% and the margin was up 60 basis points. Underlying operating profit was down 2% and the margin was unchanged on a reported basis. Before currency, operating profit was up 6%, and the margin was up 60 basis points. Adjusted EPS…

Thank you, Jim, and good morning or good afternoon to you all. As Jim just indicated, currency had a more material impact than usual on our results. And that impact is clearly shown in the 500 basis point swing between reported revenues, which were down 3%, and revenues before currency, which were up 2%. Now, in line with the way we’ve always discussed our results in the past, I will speak to revenue growth before currency throughout today’s presentation. This slide provides a snapshot of our first quarter results. On a constant currency basis, first quarter revenues were up 2%, and they were up 1% organically. Our financial business was down by about half a percent organically, which rounded to flat, while our three other businesses grew 5% in aggregate during the first quarter and they were up 4% organically. Adjusted EBITDA was down 2% with an EBITDA margin of 26.4, up 20 basis points compared to the prior year period. Excluding impact of currency, EBITDA was at 4% and the margin was up 60 basis points compared to the prior year. Our Q1 operating profit margin was flat compared to the prior year, however, excluding the impact of currency, operating profit was up 6% and the margin was also up 60 basis points. Now, let me point out that we do not expect margins to move in a straight, upward trajectory each quarter this year, due to a number of factors. These include the timing of some expenses in the second quarter, as well as the timing of some of the platform migrations within our financial business, which we discussed with you before. Now, let me provide with you some additional color on the performance of our individual businesses, starting with legal. Demand for legal services in the U.S.…

Thanks very much, Stephane, and that will conclude our formal remarks. And we would now like to open the call for questions. So if we could have the first question, please.

Certainly. [Operator instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Drew McReynolds, RBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good morning and congrats on the quarter. Just a couple of quick questions within F&R. You commented on approximately one-third being migrated of that US $700 million. Just wondering what that percentage would have been at the end of Q4 2014, and then just with respect to the decline in recoveries, I guess the question for Stephane, presumably recoveries get inputted into your organic revenue growth calculation. So just wondering what kind of declines you are expecting and then just lastly, the price increase within F&R, is that all effective, kind of Gen one or do price increases get staggered throughout the year? Thank you.

All right. Drew, let me try to take these questions starting from the last one to the first one. Yes, the price increases are effective Jan 1. Regarding the decline in recoveries, recoveries are not a large proportion of our older revenue base, as I mentioned. So they are absolutely including the organic growth rate and we have factored what we have projected to be a decline in the guidance that we gave to you. So this is not a surprise. You may recall us talking about the declining recoveries for the last year or so. I think we are going to see a more marked reduction in the coming quarters. It’s hard to predict exactly how much it is going to be; it is going to have some level of impact on the organic growth, but as I said, we’ve already included that in the guidance that we provided. And your final question was about the migration of the $700 million revenue base that we have to do on Eikon. We are progressing on that pretty much as expected and I would just refer to what we said before, which is at the end of the year, we expect that we will have about 10% of F&R’s revenue on non-Eikon desktops, on legacy desktops, if you want. As of the end of the first quarter, we probably had 25, 26%. So about 1.6 billion of our revenue base of F&R on Eikon, and so we have about 16% left to migrate, and by year end, we expect that this 16% number will go down to like 10%. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of a sense of the pace of the migration we expect.

That’s great, Stephane. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Manav Patnaik, Barclays. Please go ahead. Q – Greg Davies: Hi, this is actually Greg calling on for Manav. In F&R, the transaction growth was pretty good. Just wondering how that’s tracking so far in 2Q and kind of what kind of growth you need from that part of the business to continue to drive margins in F&R and is that 3% a reasonable run rate going forward?

It’s a reasonable run rate, Greg. It is very hard to predict what transactions will do, but if we can keep the run rate of 3 to 5%, I think that’s pretty much what we would be counting on for the balance of the year. Q – Greg Davies: Okay. And if I can sneak one in, just saw some changes in the management at Reuters News, just wondering if you can give an update on how you think about the news capabilities, both strategically and as a source investment.

Sure. Let me take that one. We think that our news offerings are a vital part of our product offerings, really across the business. But particularly in the financial sector, and we are committed to continuing to provide the kind of high quality journalism that our customers have become accustomed to. We did have a change there. Andrew Ashbash did a terrific job for us over the last couple of years and he moved on for another opportunity that he found compelling. We wish him luck in that role and we are actively recruiting to fill that position. And news is a vital part of our mix and it’s really woven into the DNA of this company in a pretty fundamental way. And we are committed to continuing that excellence for years and years to come. Q – Greg Davies: Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Next, we will go to the line of Vince Valentini, TD Securities. Please go ahead.

The lower price realization at F&R, I’m just trying to figure out how that stages through the year. You’re going to be continuing to migrate some of these foreign exchange and buy side customers, so does that headwind actually get bigger with each passing quarter or is it pretty much all in the first quarter run rate?

Good morning, Vince, it’s Stephane. I think we would expect the headwinds coming from the lower price realization to continue at about the same pace throughout the remaining three quarters of the year and probably also going into the first quarter of next year. That’s what we would expect. But it’s important to know that absent these -- this factor, this lower price realization, the underlying trend of the financial business is pretty clear that we have been very clearly in positive organic growth territory.

Do you have that figure as opposed to the -0.5, if it wasn’t for the price changes that are obviously temporary, would you have been +1 or +2 on organic revenue growth this quarter?

Yes, somewhere in that range.

Okay, great. Thanks.

Thank you. And next we’ll go to the line of Sara Gubins with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. Good morning. A question about FX. I know that rates can vary a lot but could you help us think, based on today’s rates, about what the EPS drag would be for year? And also, if we take the 18.5 to 19.5% operating margin guidance, what that might look like on a reported basis. I would like to try to get us all at least somewhat level set there.

Yes, Sara, let me try to take that one. Look, we don’t like to try to mark-to-market impact the foreign exchange because rates are fluctuating so much. Like today, I saw the largest exposure we have is obviously a long Euro position against the dollar, and I think I was reading this morning that the Euro reached a three-month high against the dollar, and went back about one-tenth. So this changes so much from one day to the other that it is pretty hard to predict. I would say first it stayed the same as where they are today. The ongoing impact of foreign exchange is probably around $0.04 or $0.05 a quarter is what I would estimate. But again, that’s why we provide our guidance in a constant currency basis on all the metrics, because then it’s much easier not to have to change our guidance all the time and just point out what the impact of foreign exchange is quarter after quarter.

And would that 60 basis point operating margin drag that we saw in the quarter from FX, is that probably the right amount to think about for the rest year, again, assuming no change in rates?

It’s probably about right, yes.

Okay. Great. And then legal, could you give us some color to think about margins for 2015 and is the print decline of 6% that we saw kind of a reasonable run rate at this point? Thank you.

Sure, Sara. Yes, I think the print decline up 6% is probably reflective of what we expect for the full year. It’s in line with what we have seen for a number of quarters now. So I think that this is what we would expect from a planning perspective, from an internal planning perspective. One was very encouraging in the first quarter I think were two facts. The first one is that our US online business returned to positive growth, and as I said, that was the first time since 2009, and there has been a very gradual increment trajectory and given that this is primarily a subscription business, I think we are very encouraged by that trajectory. And the second positive factor was that our solutions business continues to perform quite strongly, it was up 9% organically. Now, some of that was driven by higher transaction volume, but even if you look at the -- if you exclude transactions within our legal solutions business, the underlying organic growth rate was still a very solid 6%. So that business continues to perform very, very well and becomes a greater percentage of the overall legal time, and that’s why you see the revenue performance that you’ve seen in the first quarter. Now from a margin perspective, as I said in our prepared remarks, our expectation is still that the margins will be more or less flat relative to last year. Remember, our legal business has to cope with this very negative mix impact and they are doing that essentially through a combination of getting the solutions business to scale and increasing the margins there and also being ruthless on costs everywhere else in the business. So that’s what I would expect to see for the rest of the year.

Thank you.

Thank you and next we’ll go to the line of William Bird, FBR. Please go ahead.

Thank you. On F&R, does the price headwind from product migration present that segment from breaking positive on organic growth later this year? And separately, where are you on the path to realizing the 300 million in transformation cost saves? Thank you.

Good morning, Bill. It’s Stephane again. So the -- I will refer you to the comments that Jim made in the fourth quarter with regard to F & R. I think what we expect to see is to be pretty close to breakeven on the revenue line at the F & R for most of the quarters this year. We’re going to be just up or down around that breakeven line, because of the price realization impact in each quarter. So does it prevent us from moving above the line? We may very well see a quarter where we break slightly above that line this year. We may not. It’s too soon to call, very honestly, because it’s going to be depend in large part on the transaction revenue trend, but we vary what’s important is obviously to see the improvement that we’ve seen compared to last year. And sorry, Bill, what was your second question?

On the $300 million in transformation cost saves, just wondering where you are on the path to achieving that?

Yes, I apologize for that, absolutely. The transformation savings, remember, our target’s $400 million, actually. That’s what we expect to get by 2017. We’re proceeding well on all the transformations initiatives. Actually, we’re very much on track for 2015. We’re very focused now on laying out the groundwork for actions, which will drive savings in 2016 and 2017. And as I said before, that’s really where the bulk of the savings will become more visible in our profitability there, a little bit more back loaded, because obviously, we’re trying to implement these programs without taking large disruptive charges. And so as we implement that, there’s enough said between the savings that are generated from the actions we’ve already taken and some actions we get to take in order to get the future savings. So very much on plan, on the transaction program, at this point in time.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we’ll go to the line of Paul Steep, Scotia Capital. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Jim, maybe you could just talk a bit about the size of the growth opportunity ultimately in tax and accounting. It seems to be out pacing. And then, related for Stephane, the margin profile there. Where would we think that would ultimately go to over time if you don’t undertake acquisition to continue to build that business?

Sure, Paul, happy to do that. We’re very bullish on our tax and accounting business. And in fact, what we’re seeing in that business-- I think the current set of products that we have and services that we offer, particularly as we build out the global tax workstation, that serves corporate around the world, we think that can maintain the kind of growth rate that we have in that business and that line for years and years to come, because we see the opportunity to take it globally. Think for a moment, three years ago, that business would have been 99.9% U.S. domestic in terms of its revenue profile. We closed last year with 20% of the revenues coming from outside the United States, and we think that is great legs as we take that business around the globe. Additionally, when you think about the kinds of things that we do, in terms of serving corporations in particularly multinationals in their global tax planning and remittance, and management issues, and you broaden that out to include the world of global tax and trade, we think the opportunity, frankly, is enormous and that’s what we’re working very hard to do. I mean, if you looked at our list of the most promising opportunities that we see for the organization, that’s right at the top of the list, and we’re working aggressively to make certain that we’re putting the right kind of resources behind that, both in terms of our investment dollars and also in terms of our best and brightest talent, make sure we recognize that opportunity. So we think that’s a business that has a lot of growth legs and one we’re investing in very heavily.

Yeah, and so from a margin perspective, Paul, at this time, how we try to operate that business. If we can see top line growth of high single digits, we will obviously work with the management of the business to really apply as much of the profit flowing through that growth in the business. And if the EBITDA growth is in line with the top line growth and it’s, again, high single digits we are very, very happy with this and try to keep that going as long as we can. If at some point in time should we start to see a slowdown on the top line growth, I think there’s an opportunity to improve the margins by maybe reinvesting a little less. But that’s not where we are at this point in time.

Great. And just one quick clarification, Stephane. On the F & R, the list at the back end of the year in terms of margins, should we think of that as being relatively linear through Q3 to 4, or is it going to be overweight in Q4? Thank you.

Since it’s highly dependent on the completion of the migration of the IDN BON platform, we said that will happen towards the latter part of the year. I think you can see a greater margin improvement in Q4 than you will in Q3.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ato Garrett with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi. Just a couple more questions on margins. You mentioned in your prepared comments that you’re not expecting a linear progression in margins across the year. So I was wondering if you can give some clarification for how do you expect the margins to trend across 2015. And then, also just looking at your guidance for financial and risk of approaching a 30% operating margin. I know you mentioned some of the difficulty in quantifying your guidance over the FX impact on guidance. But, seeing that we saw 115 basis point FX headwind, I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more color on what we should expect that to be on full year basis for the segment. Thank you.

Sure. Maybe for me to take that question. Yeah, I mentioned that margin evolution will not be linear. There are a number of factors that will drive margins this year. One, which answered both of your questions, is what we talked about, which is the migration of the big infrastructure platform we have going on in financial and risk. And obviously since we expect to complete that one in the latter part of the year, I would expect that once it’s complete you’re going to see a much more pronounced margin improvement within F & R, and hence, that’s going to be visible at the consolidated level also. And that’s probably going to happen in the fourth quarter. Now, there are other factors that-- timing factors that really impact the margin from one quarter to the other. One thing I can mention to you, for instance, is that we are implementing or annual salary increases this year in the second quarter. Last year we did that in the third quarter. So that has an impact on a year-on-year basis. But that’s where we really point to the margin guidance for the full year, and that’s, I think, what’s really important as you try to understand trends growing on in the business and you see that our full year guidance for margins shows a solid improvement compared to 2014.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Louis Pavia, JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to ask about a comment you made in your press release that net sales were positive in all regions, and that would include EMEA. So could you-- did you talk a little bit about what you’ve been seeing in EMEA lately?

Yeah, I think that is particularly encouraging, I think. In fact, if you look, we were positive in all regions, and I guess it’s the second time in the last three quarters that we’ve had positive net sales in Europe and EMEA. So if you look, we were strong in EMEA in Q1 and we were strong in Americas, particularly strong in those two regions, and that’s quite encouraging. I think what we’re seeing is that some sense of stability has returned to the market there. We have better product offerings. It’s not real complicated. We’ve got better product, better service, better retention rates, and our sales force is doing a terrific job. So you put all of that net/net together in what I think is becoming a more stable environment in the banking community there and it’s encouraging to see.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we’ll go to the line of Peter Appert, Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead.

Thanks, good morning. So I was just hoping could you help me understand the dynamics on the lower price realizations in F & R. Is that a function of discounting to incentivize customers to make the transition? Or is there some other dynamic going on? And then, if I could just throw in a second question. Any update on what you’re seeing in terms of client attrition, as the migration occurs, are you seeing any improvements there? Thank you.

Yeah, let me take that from high level and Stephane can come in if I mischaracterize anything or can add some granularity around it. If you think about, it’s more about putting a price on a product and combining products into new offerings. So for example on the FX side, we used to charge separately for Eikon, dealing with heading and FX all. And now we’re putting those together into one product, at a price that’s lower than the three of them were. Same thing as when we think about the rest of the buy side opportunities that we have where we are moving primarily a dozen Thomson One products into packaged offerings that we are selling and the combined price won’t be the net/net of all the prior prices. I can say, frankly, that on the FX side, we are much further along on the FX side in terms of rolling it out and the customer experience has been good. We have, in fact, been able to improve our footprint as a result of having done that. So I think we have significantly strengthened our competitive position by doing so. But there’s a one-time cost of doing that, and that’s the price realization that we are going to get from the combined product being offered at a lower price than the three products were before, or as we move further to the buy side, the five or six products were before, if that’s helpful.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we’ll go to the line of Doug Arthur, UBS Research. Please go ahead.

Yeah, I’m just trying to get some big picture context on legal. I mean, ex-print you grew 5% organic in the first quarter; you’re saying that’s probably the peak for the year. I’m trying to get a sense, Jim, do you think this segment has finally sort of breaking out, given its new components to growth or is it still a bit of a push in terms of overall growth? Thanks.

I think you’re seeing flow through in the revenue line, what we saw in the underlying trends all of last year, which was kind of slow and steady improvement in all the fundamentals and those solutions businesses being a greater part of the mix. So, of all the things we’ve seen in the first quarter, that’s really encouraging to see. And I do think we’re at a place where -- and a very fortunate place to have such a foundational part of our business be back in growth and I think we are back in growth in that business. As Stephane pointed out in a couple of his comments, it was particularly strong on the transactional side and that stuff is episodic and situational, particularly in the legal process outsourcing business where it kind of ebbs and flows on large litigation matters, right? So will it always be 3% for the balance of the year? We think that’s the high watermark, but we do think that what’s happened on the underlying business is something that is sustainable and we are very encouraged by it. We’re encouraged by the stickiness of our Westlaw product, which is based on the quality of the product, as you know, it’s a significantly premium priced product and that’s still very well received in the market. And then as Stephane again mentioned, but we can’t underestimate is rolling out of the US products in the kind of Practical Law framework is proving to be very well received in the US market as well. So you always hesitate to say, oh, things have turned, but I do think we are executing better and this really is the flow through of trends we have seen over the last several quarters in terms of underlying sales.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tim Casey, BMO Harris. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Just back to the migration case, could you clarify something? You mentioned -- I think you said about 60% of the customers are on the new Elektron platform. Is that correct? And we should assume that that will be 100% by the year end, but that 10% of customers will still be on a legacy desktop and will those just linger on or will they phase out through the course of ‘16, so that there will be no legacy desktops through the course of ‘16? Thanks.

Yes, Tim, thanks for the question and I apologize if we were not clear. Let me try to clarify it as much as possible. When we speaking about the IDN bunt platform, this is the underlying infrastructure, the pipes, if you want, for which the data flows. We do absolutely expect to be 100% complete by the end of the year on this. We were, at the end of the first quarter, we had 60% of our customer count that essentially have both sites, if you want, that were on the new platform, the Elektron platform. About half of them kind of disconnected from the legacy network that they were on and the other half were kind of dual running this. So if you look at what we need to achieve on the balance of the year, we need to get that other half now, 100%, on Elektron and we need still to convert another 40% of the sites to the new Elektron platform and disconnect them from the old network. What we spoke about on Eikon is a different measure. That’s really, if you want the desktop terminal that they have got in front of them, it’s not the underlying infrastructure, which is Elektron, and on the Eikon migration, that’s where we said that we should have, the vast majority of our desktop on Eikon with only 10% of the revenue base of still on legacy product at the end of the year. Does that help clarifying?

Yeah. Thank you. And should we expect that 10% to gradually move over to Eikon or will that linger for years?

It will linger. I mean, we will probably be largely done -- I would expect all the foreign exchange should be done, the asset management should be largely done, we are probably going to have, our guess is May 100, 150 mils of revenue still to convert in 2016. The rest is kind of, will take more time, but the rest represents products that have a much better retention rate overall, and so that can take a little bit more time.

Thank you.

Operator, we’d like to take one final question please.

Certainly. Our last question comes from the line of Claudio Aspesi with Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Two questions, please. Can you give us a flavor for how the enterprise business is performing overall? You talked about a transition to the platform, but can you please give us a flavor whether growth is coming from still converting internally managed accounts or whether it’s becoming a market share gain? And the second question is about the science business. It used to be a high growth business until not too long ago. It has flattened out substantially and I’m wondering whether this is just a new norm or what do you thinking you can return it to growth and what plans do you have to do so?

I’ll take the second question. I know Jim wants to take the first one. On the science business, Claudio, I will not sugar coat the situation. The first quarter was not a good quarter for the business. Flat growth is not a performance that we expect from this business. We do expect a better performance and the margin decline is certainly not something that we would expect to see going forward. Some of the margin decline was due to factors that are very explainable. They’re transforming the business and so there were some cuts that they took in Q1. Discretionary expenses they took in Q1, severance and the others, they were too small to kind of call out. There was also the impact of mix, but, overall, the performance should have been better. So we do expect that the performance will be better over the remaining of the year in that business. Remember, it’s also a business that’s highly impacted by transaction revenues and when you have to go with an 11% decline, your transaction revenue business that obviously has a big impact on the top line growth.

And, Claudio…

Just as a quick follow-up-- Sorry, can I do a quick follow-up? Why are the transactional revenues down so much?

Because that’s something that’s very -- these are large things as we conclude primarily with government and economic entities. And depending on how many you can book in a given quarter, it has a big impact on the growth rate of the business.

Okay.

I think, Claudio, if you look at the-- particularly in this quarter, it’s affected as much by some abnormal transactional activities in Q1 of the prior year, as much as the lack of those repeating in the current year, right? There are these large one-time [indiscernible] (54:05) often to governments to replenish academic libraries or to add volumes to research institutions. And we had a particularly strong Q1 in terms of one offs or one off sales in the prior year. When you ask about enterprise, I assume you’re talking about our data fees business and what you call enterprise. That continues to be a strong business for us. And that frankly, it’s interesting. We think of it more as a holistic approach to our customers these days than kind of separating them from feeds and desktops because the one thing we’ve done is to tie that together and for the -- the first time now, basically, our terminal, our Eikon terminal is just a viewer into the enterprise feed. So we’re rather agnostic as to whether or not you take the desktop or you take the feed or how we wire it in. But, it’s kind of the quality of the underlying data that proves awfully sticky. And, frankly, the -- getting those feeds wired into the infrastructure of our customers makes it very, very -- makes it very, very sticky. So that continues to be a big part of the mix, and it’s one that continues to grow for us.

Thank you.

Okay. Well, that will conclude our call. I’d like to thank you all for your questions today and please feel free to follow up with us. And I look forward to speaking to you again next quarter. Have a good day.