UPDATE 1-Thomson Reuters names former Nielsen president Hasker as CEO

Thomson Reuters Corp said on Tuesday it had appointed former Nielsen Holdings Plc president Steve Hasker as its new chief executive officer, succeeding Jim Smith.

Hasker, most recently a top executive at Hollywood talent agency CAA, will assume his new role on March 15, Thomson Reuters said. Smith, a former journalist who oversaw a period of major change at the company, will stay on for a transition period through 2020 and become chairman of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Stephane Bello, Chief Financial Officer, will also step down from his role and will be succeeded by Mike Eastwood, current Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance. Bello will oversee strategy and business development into 2021, the company said.

In recent years, Thomson Reuters had cut costs and shed some businesses as it recovered from the fallout of the financial crisis in 2008. Smith’s defining accomplishment was the sale he engineered of a 55% stake in the company's financial division in 2018 to Blackstone Group Inc, valuing the business at $20 billion. Blackstone subsequently struck a deal to sell the unit, now called Refinitiv, to the London Stock Exchange Group Plc .

Shares of Thomson Reuters have more than doubled since the Refinitiv deal, and have tripled since he took over as CEO in 2012. European competition authorities are expected to rule on the London Stock Exchange's $27-billion takeover of data and analytics company Refinitiv in coming months.

(Writing by Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Li and Jessica DiNapoli in New York, editing by Edward Tobin)