Thomson Reuters will keep a 49-per-cent stake in the print business, as well as intellectual property rights and editorial control, after striking a deal with investment manager KKR.Carlo Allegri/Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corp. TRI-T is selling a majority stake in its global print unit to U.S.-based investment manager KKR & Co. Inc. KKR-N, freeing up cash from the information provider’s shrinking publishing business to focus on its core software products.
Accounts managed by KKR are buying a 51-per-cent stake in the business for US$500-million and forming a joint venture that will be licensed to distribute print and e-book content. Thomson Reuters will keep a 49-per-cent stake as well as intellectual property rights and editorial control.
The global print business sells information in hard copies and e-books to lawyers, judges, law schools and corporations. It also offers commercial printing services to clients such as book publishers and universities.
The unit still has a loyal following, mostly in the United States, Canada and Britain. But like many print publishing businesses, its revenue has been in steady decline as customers move to online alternatives. In 2025, revenue from global print was US$490-million, down 6 per cent from US$519-million in 2024.
Thomson Reuters had nearly US$7.5-billion of total revenue last year, most of which comes from its three main business lines that sell software tools – which are increasingly underpinned by artificial intelligence – to legal, tax and accounting, as well as corporate professionals.
The company’s performance is anchored in software and AI, not in paper-based products, and it is spending more than US$200-million annually on upgrading the AI capabilities in its software products. That includes adding “agentic” capabilities that can do complex, multistep tasks with fewer prompts from human users.
The joint venture with KKR carves the print division out as a standalone business and allows Thomson Reuters to unlock some of its remaining value, providing cash to reinvest in those core business lines.
“We believe this transaction with KKR provides our Global Print business with the focused investment, operational capabilities, and independence to thrive as a standalone business, while ensuring that Thomson Reuters printed content continues to reach the professionals who depend on it,” Thomson Reuters chief executive officer Steve Hasker said in a statement.
Woodbridge Co. Ltd., the Thomson family holding company and controlling shareholder of Thomson Reuters, also owns The Globe and Mail.
The deal “is not overly material” to Thomson Reuters, with the print business representing about 2 per cent of the company’s enterprise value, RBC Dominion Securities Inc. analyst Drew McReynolds said in a note to clients.
But “we do support any optimization of the asset mix towards higher-growth businesses,” he said.
Thomson Reuters is under pressure to fend off challenges from new AI tools for legal professionals rolled out by companies such as Anthropic. Thomson Reuters’ share price has fallen nearly 57 per cent over the past year as investors worry that AI will disrupt many software businesses, prompting a sector-wide sell-off.
Mr. Hasker has suggested the market reaction is driven by “anxiety and not fundamentals,” and Thomson Reuters is betting that its deep trove of proprietary data, honed over decades by teams of experts, will help it build more trustworthy and reliable AI products that will appeal to professionals.
The transaction with KKR is expected to close in the fourth quarter this year, and the joint venture is structured to guarantee that KKR earns a minimum return on its equity investment.
“We see a compelling opportunity both to support the Global Print business as a standalone proposition and to help Thomson Reuters optimize its portfolio of businesses,” said KKR partner Brian Dillard, who serves as co-chief investment officer for the company’s insurance subsidiary, Global Atlantic.