TOS meaning in Business ?

The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to form Thomson Reuters. The Thomson Corporation was active in financial services, healthcare sectors, law, science and technology research and tax and accounting sectors. The company operated through five segments (2007 onwards): Thomson Financial, Thomson Healthcare, Thomson Legal, Thomson Scientific and Thomson Tax & Accounting.

Until 2007, Thomson was also a major worldwide provider of higher education textbooks, academic information solutions and reference materials. On 26 October 2006, Thomson announced the proposed sale of its Thomson Learning assets. In May 2007, Thomson Learning was acquired by Apax Partners and subsequently renamed Cengage Learning in July. The Thomson Learning brand was used to the end of August 2007.

Subsequently, on 15 October 2007, Educational Testing Service (ETS) finalized acquisition of Thomson's Prometric. Thomson sold its global network of testing centres in 135 countries, for a reported $435 million. Prometric now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of ETS.

On 15 May 2007, the Thomson Corporation reached an agreement with Reuters to combine the two companies, a deal valued at $17.2 billion. On 17 April 2008 the new company was created under the name of Thomson Reuters. The chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters is Jim Smith, and the chairman is David Thomson, formerly of the Thomson Corporation. Although it was officially a Canadian company and remained Canadian owned, Thomson was run from its operational headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, in the United States.