Until 2007, Thomson was also a major worldwide provider of higher education textbooks, academic information solutions and reference materials.

[3] Subsequently, on 15 October 2007, Educational Testing Service (ETS) finalized acquisition of Thomson's Prometric.

[4] On 15 May 2007, the Thomson Corporation reached an agreement with Reuters to combine the two companies, a deal valued at $17.2 billion.

Over the years, the company has withdrawn from its holdings in the oil and gas business, the travel industry and department stores.

[12] In 1978, the acquisition of Wadsworth Publishing provided Thomson with its first entry into specialised information, college textbooks and professional books.

)[13] Starting in the mid-1990s, Thomson invested further in specialised information services (but this time providing them in digital format) and began selling off its newspapers.

One of the first moves came when Thomson spent $3.4 billion to acquire the West Publishing Company, a legal information provider in Eagan, Minnesota.

[12] In recent years, Thomson provided much of the specialised information content the world's financial, legal, research and medical organizations rely on every day to make business-critical decisions and drive innovation.

[12] "Except for its educational division, which still publishes a substantial number of conventional textbooks, Thomson had the good fortune to move into these businesses as customers were demanding electronic delivery of their information", according to a 3 July 2006 article.

The B2B publishing group, which features such titles as American Banker, National Mortgage News, and The Bond Buyer, was renamed SourceMedia.

[20] In October 2006, the company confirmed it would sell the Thomson Learning market group in three parts.

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

Its brands include Thomson ONE, Westlaw, FindLaw, BARBRI, Pangea3, Physician's Desk Reference (now published digitally as the Prescriber's Digital Reference), RIA, Thomson Tax and Accounting (tax and accounting software and services for accountants), Creative Solutions, Quickfinder, DISEASEDEX (now merged with IBM Watson Health), DrugREAX, Medstat, Thomson First Call (now a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group, known as Refinitiv), Checkpoint, EndNote (now produced by Clarivate, an independent company), Derwent World Patents Index (now produced by Clarivate), SAEGIS (now produced by Clarivate), MicroPatent, Aureka (now owned by Clarivate), Faxpat, OptiPat, Just Files, Faxpat, OptiPat, Just Files, Corporate Intelligence, InfoTrac (now owned by Cengage), Delphion, Arco Test Prep (now owned by Cengage), Peterson's Directories (now owned by Cengage), NewsEdge, TradeWeb, Web of Science (now produced by Clarivate) and the Arden Shakespeare (now published by Bloomsbury Publishing).

[citation needed] On 1 January 2004, Thomson adopted a new accounting standard, which required restatement of all prior periods.

[12] When Kenneth Thomson died in June 2006, control of the family fortune passed on to David K.R.