Thomson Reuters Corporation (NYSE:TRI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

We’ve got to make the right set of investments in products and in talent. And our track record, I think, is building in those areas. And to George’s question around EBITDA margin and free cash flow guidance, for me that’s a positive story, because we see opportunities to invest further to drive growth in the out years. And so notwithstanding the economic climate in 2023, we’re pretty excited about what we see and the investment opportunities in front of us.

Michael Eastwood: Yes. And Vince, just to clarify, those investment opportunities, organic and inorganic, to fuel that Big 3 long-term growth.

Vince Valentini: Yes. No, for sure. Mike, one quick follow-up for you on a similar topic, different angle, is price increases. You talked previously about a bit of a lag impact where your wage costs and other input costs may have gone up, and it will take a little while to catch up with your rate increases. Is that cycle complete by the end of this year, so that margins in 2024 should not be negatively impacted by that dynamic?

Michael Eastwood: Vince, great question. That should largely be completed by the end of 2023. Just given the long-term nature of some of our multiyear contracts, there will be some that would over into 2024, but substantially complete by the end of ’23 as those contracts materialize and mature.

Operator: The following question comes from Drew McReynolds from RBC.

Drew McReynolds: Just two quick ones for me. Maybe starting with you, Steve. When you laid out the Change Program and when you stepped into your role, you talked about a couple of different phases in what you wanted to do. And cross-selling was one that was more medium term once you had your organization kind of in a position to do more of it. So just what are your latest thoughts on boosting that activity looking forward? And secondly, on the outlook, I get the question, and maybe this is you’re a victim of your own success, going back a couple of years when you provided 3 years of outlook. Just wondering what your latest thoughts are when you think about 2024 and 2025 and the provision of your expectations or guidance for those years?

Stephen Hasker: Yes. Drew, let me take the second one first. We’re not today providing guidance for ’24 and ’25. As we get through the year and I think get more confidence and clarity around some of these investments, I think we’ll be in a position to come back to you with some more clarity there. The only thing I’d sort of double down on is the comments I made in reference to Heather’s question, we just — we see lots of opportunities to invest and lots of promise within our core Big 3 franchises. We did, indeed, as you say, call out cross-selling, and it’s part of the Change Program. There’s a couple of areas where — there are sort of a few areas where we really saw areas for improvement. The first was in the complexity. The number of products, the number of solutions overly complex when we started this process, and that’s where the divestitures have come in.