Reuters has announced a series of new ventures, with a view to expand and strenghten its internet capabilities and services.
Their adventurous strategy will cost £500m over the next four years, will involve partial flotation of its Greenhouse internet investment fund and the possible demerger of its online trading business Instinet.
The group also announced an internal reorganisation, bringing a number of new faces to the board, and two new ventures, one of which will see the group launch a financial internet portal for European private investors.
Chief executive Peter Job said the internet would enable the company to spread its wings into the retail market and adopt a more cost-effective model for its bricks-and mortar business.
Geoff Wicks, director of corporate relations at Reuters said: Our new internet initiatives are part of a strategy to make financial markets really work on the internet. The group aims to substantially increase the number of users with the new services provided.
Wicks added: We need migration of services to accelerate internet delivery, not just on the public internet but also to build a secure extranet.
The group has apppointed Morgan Stanley Dean Witter to oversee the partial flotation of its greenhouse fund which since 1994 Reuters has used to invest in a range of start-up technology companies, mostly in the US.
The new venture will provide a wide range of financial decision support tools and broker research, from stockbrokers and investment banks to European private investors, via the internet.
The new service will focus on the rapidly expanding online investor community in Europe where it is estimated that in the next two years, nearly 900m European investors will be managing their portfolios online.
It will have very similar characteristics to US portal- Multex Investor, also launched by Multex.com. Isaak Karaev, chairman and chief executive officer of Multex.com, will be the chairman of the new venture. It will have one other director from Multex.com and two from Reuters. Based in London, the site will be operational sometime later this year.
