Thomson Companies history

In 1972 the group moved into travel retailing with the acquisition of Lunn Poly.

The consortium’s first strike, in 1973, was in the Piper field, containing more than 800 million barrels of oil.

By the time of Roy Thomson’s death in 1976, his company had sold interests in radio and television stations, but it owned more than 100 newspapers in the United States and Canada.

Later, stricter government controls led to a forced reduction in Thomson's holding and the company sold its remaining interest in 1977.

1978 International Thomson Organisation Ltd. is formed; headquarters is moved to Toronto.

In 1980 International Thomson would relinquish the Yellow Pages contract and start its own local directory operation in partnership with the American firm Dun & Bradstreet.

1981: Times Newspapers division is sold to Rupert Murdoch.

By 1983, 25 percent of ITOL's sales were to the United States and nearly 20 percent of its workforce was employed there.

At that time it had provided about 75 percent of ITOL's profits, but by 1985, when the Scapa field in which it had invested came onstream, this proportion had fallen to just over 50 percent.

By the end of 1988, after 54 years of growth, Thomson Newspapers was publishing 40 daily and 12 weekly newspapers in Canada, and 116 daily and 24 weekly newspapers in the United States, representing the largest number of daily newspapers of any newspaper publishing group in either country.

1989: ITOL and Thomson Newspapers merge to become The Thomson Corporation.

In 1990 Thomson Newspapers purchased five daily newspapers and several associated weekly publications in the United States, its largest ever single purchase.

A towering media, information, and travel empire, The Thomson Corporation ranks as the fifth-largest and third most profitable publisher in the world, according to Fortune’s July 1992 global business survey.

In 1994 the company paid about US$465 million for Foster City, California-based Information Access Company (IAC), a former division of Ziff-Davis Communications Co.

Michael Brown was named deputy chairman in 1998, replacing longtime adviser to Kenneth Thomson, John Tory; Brown was in turn replaced as president and CEO by Richard Harrington.

Thomson Newspapers included 55 daily newspapers and more than 75 nondaily newspapers and generated US$810 million in 1999 revenues.

Perhaps even more dramatically, given the company's historic roots, Thomson announced in mid-February 2000 that it intended to sell off all of its remaining newspaper interests, with the exception of the flagship Globe and Mail.

"Thomson Corporation to Sell Noncore Businesses Within Thomson Financial," Canadian Corporate News, February 27, 2001.

2002 Kenneth Thomson retires and Thomson offers shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Also in 2003, Thomson sold its medical magazine publishing units to Advanstar Communications.

Thomson posted strong results for 2004 with revenues hitting $8.1 billion, led by Thomson's Legal & Regulatory division with CAD 3.3 billion in revenues.

2005 Seattle-based NexCura, Inc. is acquired by Thomson Scientific & Health.

At Kenneth's death in June 2006, the company was valued at about $29.3 billion.

Apax announced its acquisition of Thomson's higher education business on 11 May 2007, for $7.5 billion in cash assets.