Thomson’s Making a List, It’s Checking It Twice

Got a nice little legal information business you want to cash in on?

Bloomberg’s reporting that Thomson has a nice chest of cash (rumour is $5 Billion) accumulated for acquisitions:

Thomson seeking acquisitions

Thomson Corp., owner of the Eagan-based Westlaw legal research and TradeWeb financial products, will seek purchases after raising cash from the sale of its education unit, Chief Executive Officer Richard Harrington said.

“We’ll look for acquisitions within the existing business segments and we’ll look for acquisitions in a new segment if it fits our business model,” said Harrington.

Thomson has said it’s reorganizing operations to focus on faster-growing electronic services. The learning unit, which Thomson decided in October to sell, may fetch more than $5 billion, CIBC analyst Amy Glading said in a note at the time.

After the sale, about 80 percent of Thomson’s products will be on the Internet, up from 69 percent, he said.