Reuters to be 1,500 in Bangalore

BANGALORE: Financial news and information provider Reuters Group Plc plans to make Bangalore its biggest employment center worldwide to become more competitive.

Reuters plans to locate up to 1,500 people, or 10 percent of its workforce of 14,900, in the southern India town that has become a hotspot for information technology development and back-office services. Staff will consist mostly of data and technical employees.

"What we are creating here is the largest single hub of information gathering" within Reuters, said Geert Linnebank, the company's editor-in-chief and head of content operations, at a ceremony to open its new office here.

Reuters, which competes with Bloomberg L.P. and others in delivering news and data to financial clients, already has hired 340 employees to compile and analyse data and expects to have 400 by the end of this year, he said.

The Bangalore office will employ 1,000 by the end of 2005 and between 1,200 to 1,500 over the next year and a half, Linnebank said at a news conference.

Bangalore is set to become the biggest of four global data centers, with about 750 staff, or 50 percent of its expanded data-gathering group, to be located here by the end of 2005, said Justin Abel, the company's head of data operations.

Reuters, which is headquartered in London, set up shop in India in 1866 to provide news and commodity prices to European markets. The company now employs about 2,300 journalists around the world.

It plans to have up to 40 journalists in its Bangalore newsroom, a number that could increase over time, said David Schlesinger, global managing editor of Reuters. Twenty journalists already are working on editorial reference projects and coverage of small- and medium-sized U.S. companies.

"It is difficult to say exactly where we will end up," Schlesinger said. "I am sure it will grow from there."