Peter Williams

As we report on our front page, the company is undertaking its biggest re-engineering exercise in a decade. It has announced that is acquiring US risk management and data collection company ChoicePoint for £2.1bn and disposing of its trade magazine titles, which makes clear its strategy: Reed Elsevier is now concentrating on becoming an online provider of information-rich content.

It can hardly be a coincidence that the announcement of the Reed Elsevier shake-up came in the week that regulators in the US, Europe and Canada had all given their blessing to the $15.8bn acquisition of Reuters by Thomson. The approval came after horse-trading on a handful of databases in order to ensure adequate competition in key markets. That deal should now be finalised in mid-April.

One of the key elements of Reed Elsevier’s moves is a new determination to keep up with its big rival. The positive City reaction to the shake-up underlines the belief by investors that subscription-based services will continue to do well even as the world economy enters a period of volatility, and even recession. Latest figures suggest the information industry is in sound if not spectacular health but it is information professionals who are better placed than City analysts to know whether that confident assessment is justified.

Reed Elsevier is still in cost-cutting mood, and it won’t be the only one. Budgets across every sector will be under intense scrutiny, although one group at least, City information professionals, seem remarkably upbeat about the impact of the global credit crunch on their role. The mixture of economic slowdown and a fundamental shift in the information market will make for a testing time for information professionals, but it is one when they can really prove their worth.

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