Reuters axes 300 jobs

Cuts continue...

Reuters has announced it is to cut 300 more jobs at US subsidiary Instinet, as the troubled firm continues to seek a way out of decline. The company has made around 2,000 redundancies in the last 18 months, with one major cull in July 2001 and a second round of cuts early this year. The latest cuts will only affect the company's US share trading subsidiary. Reuters is currently trying to merge Instinet with rival trading platform Island ECN, which it bought earlier this year for £348m. The Guardian cites analysts who suggest the deeper than expected cuts resulting from this merger are evidence of difficult market conditions which have already beset the unit. Amid these bleak pronouncements on the future of the firm, Reuters' shares closed down seven per cent at 218.75p.