Canada's Thomson is in talks to buy Reuters Group for about 8.8 billion pounds ($17.6 billion) to create the world's biggest news and financial data company, the two firms said on Tuesday. In a joint statement, the two firms said Reuters shareholders would get 352-1/2 pence in cash and 0.1600 Thomson shares for each share, worth an equivalent of 697 pence a share based on Monday's closing prices. That would be 42 percent above Reuters closing share price on Thursday, the day before it announced a bid approach. The enlarged, dual-listed group will be called Thomson-Reuters and the combined Thomson Financial unit and Reuters financial and media businesses will be called Reuters.
