Operating profits for that business for 2011 were $261 million, up from $223 million for 2010. Revenue for the most recently completed year was $1.1 billion, compared to just over $1 billion the prior year. Tax & Accounting ended the year with weaker performance in operating profits, but stronger revenue growth. Fourth-quarter operating profits were $118 million, a 7-percent  increase from $110.7 million in last year's corresponding period. Revenue for the last three months of 2011 hit $369 milllion, up 19 percent from $310 million a year earlier.

Thomson's struggles with markets for the financial markets led to the departure of Thomas Glocer and his replacment by James Smith as CEO. Smith, in an earnings webcast last week, quickly tried to relegate problems as something in the past and done with. He noted a change in marketing Eikon, the financial product that competes with Bloomberg and said Thomson is selling the product as a product, not a platform. He also described what he called last year's "pooly-executed sales reorganization" as one element in performance problems.

The action that Smith pictured as placing problems in the past was a $3 billion noncash goodwill impairment charge related to its financial services business, taken in the fourth quarter. As a result of the writedown, in the last quarter Thomson lost $2.6 billion, a sharp swing from $225 million in net income the prior year. The company lost $1.4 billion last year compared to $933 million in net income for 2010. Revenue for 2011 was $13.8 billion, a 6-percent increase from $13.1 billion the prior year. Thomson eliminated its previous divisions last year, including the markets division and is now organized around lines of business, including Tax & Accounting, that had been part of the Professional division.