We're also seeing improving customer engagement, including 8,000 registrations for our annual Legal, Tax and Corporates SYNERGY conferences around the world.
Our leadership team, including the president of our Corporates business, Sunil Pandita; and the president of our Tax & Accounting Professionals business, Elizabeth Beastrom, will be joining nearly 2,000 of our customers for the upcoming SYNERGY conferences in November in Nashville.
Four of our five business segments recorded organic revenue growth of 6%.
That performance resulted in total company organic revenue growth of 5%, putting us well above the 3.5% to 4% third quarter guidance provided in August.
Full year total company organic revenue growth is now forecast to be between 4.5% and 5% and approximately 6% for the Big 3 businesses.
Free cash flow for the year is now forecast to be approximately $1.2 billion.
As of September 30, we recorded run rate savings of about $130 million, putting us on a path to achieve $200 million by year end.
I'll remind you, our aggregate savings target is $600 million by the end of 2023, $200 million of which we plan to reinvest in the business.
Finally, we were active during the quarter executing on the $1.2 billion share buyback program we announced in August.
We've already bought back $1.1 billion of stock, and we expect to complete the program before year end.
Contributing to this performance was strong organic growth of more than 20% from our Latin American businesses and nearly 10% growth from our Asia and emerging markets businesses.
Adjusted EBITDA declined 7% to $458 million due to costs related to the Change Program, resulting in a margin of 30%.
Excluding Change Program costs, adjusted EBITDA margin was 33.5%.
Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was $0.46, compared to $0.39 per share in the prior-year period.
The Big 3 businesses achieved organic revenue growth of 6% for the quarter.
Legal's third quarter performance was again strong with organic revenue growth of 6%.
This was Legal's second consecutive quarter of 6% growth, its highest quarterly growth rate in over a decade.
For example, Westlaw Edge continues to achieve strong sales growth and ended the quarter with an annual contract value or ACV penetration of 60%, achieving our full year ACV penetration guidance.
Third, our Government business, which is managed within our Legal segment, continues to perform and grew 10% organically.
And fourth, FindLaw grew over 10%, and our Legal businesses in Canada, Europe and Asia all grew mid-single-digit in the quarter.
Organic revenue growth increased to 6% from 4% in the first half of the year.
Reuters News organic revenues also increased 6%, the second consecutive quarter of 6% growth.
This was driven by the Professional business, which includes Reuters Events, which grew over 60% and continues to recover from the negative impact of COVID-19 in 2020.
Finally, Global Print organic revenues declined 5%, less than expected, due to a continued gradual return to office by our customers and higher third-party print revenues.
We still have much work to do in executing our Change Program, and we've assembled a talented team over the past 18 months who are working well together and clearly understand our goals and our timelines.
As you can see on this slide, momentum has been building for our Big 3 businesses over the past 11 quarters, which we believe will continue in the fourth quarter and into next year.
These factors position us well to achieve the upper end of the range of our 2022 revenue guidance of 4% to 5%.
This release features key integrations with Practical Law, Contract Express, Elite 3E and Microsoft Teams and includes more than 50 enhancements and upgrades.
Today, these four legal products are growing double digit, comprising over 10% of total company revenue and are contributing to the improving growth in both our Legal and Corporates segments.
Two weeks ago, we announced the establishment of a $100 million corporate venture capital fund focused on the future of professionals.
Let me start by discussing the third quarter revenue performance of our Big 3 segments.
Organic revenues and revenues at constant currency were both up 6% for the quarter.
This marks the fifth consecutive quarter our Big 3 segments have grown at least 5%.
Legal Professionals total and organic revenues increased 6% in the third quarter.
Recurring organic revenue grew 6%.
And transaction revenues increased 10% related to our Elite, FindLaw and Government businesses.
Westlaw Edge added about 100 basis points to Legal's organic growth rate, is maintaining a healthy premium and is expected to continue to contribute at a similar level going forward.
Our Government business, which is reported within Legal and includes much of our risk, fraud, and compliance businesses, had a strong quarter, with total revenue growth of 11% and organic growth of 10%.
In our Corporates segment, total and organic revenues increased 6% due to recurring organic revenue growth of 7% and transactions organic revenue growth of 2%.
And finally, Tax & Accounting's total and organic revenues grew 6%, driven by 10% recurring organic revenue growth.
Transactions organic revenue declined 9%, resulting from the year-over-year timing of individual tax filing deadlines.
Normalizing for this timing, organic revenues for Tax & Accounting were up 11% in Q3.
Third quarter performance was strong, achieving total and organic revenue growth of 6%, primarily due to the Agency business and Professional business, which includes Reuters Events.
In Global Print, total and organic revenues declined 5%, at the lower end of the range we had forecast of minus 5% to minus 8%.
We expect full year Global Print revenue to decline between 4% and 6%.
On a consolidated basis, third quarter total and organic revenues each increased 5%.
Starting on the left side, total company organic revenue for the third quarter of 2021 was up 5% compared to 2% in the third quarter of 2020 due to the impact of COVID.
If we look at Q3 2021 performance for the Big 3, you will see organic revenues increased 6% compared to 5% in the same period last year.
Total company recurring organic revenues grew 6% in Q3, 230 basis points above Q3 2020.
And the Big 3 recurring organic revenues grew 7%, which was above last year's third quarter growth of 5%.
Transaction revenues were up 8%, as the third quarter of 2020 was impacted by COVID, which affected our implementation services and the Reuters Events business.
Starting with the total TR chart on the top left, we now estimate full year total and organic revenues will grow between 4.5% and 5%.
This is an increase from the previous guidance of 4% to 4.5%.
The Big 3 total and organic revenues are now forecast to grow approximately 6% for the full year, up from the previous guidance of 5.5% to 6%.
We forecast full year total and organic revenues to grow between 3% and 5%, driven mainly by our Reuters Professional business.
This is an increase from the previous guidance of 2% to 3%.
Finally, Global Print full year revenues are expected to decline between 4% and 6%, an improvement from our previous guidance of a 4% to 7% decline.
Adjusted EBITDA for the Big 3 segments was $468 million, up 7% from the prior-year period.
Adjusted EBITDA was $25 million, $2 million more than the prior-year period, driven by revenue growth.
Global Print adjusted EBITDA was $52 million with a margin of 35%, a decline of about 600 basis points due to the decrease in revenues and the dilutive impact of lower margin third-party print revenue.
So in aggregate, total company adjusted EBITDA was $458 million, a 7% decrease versus Q3 2020.
Excluding costs related to the Change Program, adjusted EBITDA increased 4%.
The third quarter's adjusted EBITDA margin was 30% and was 33.5% on an underlying basis, excluding costs related to the Change Program.
Starting with earnings per share, adjusted earnings per share was $0.46 per share versus $0.39 per share in the prior-year period, an 18% increase.
For the full year, we have decreased our tax rate guidance to between 14% and 16% due to favorable results from the settlement of prior tax years in various jurisdictions.
Currency had a $0.01 positive impact on adjusted earnings per share in the quarter.
Our reported free cash flow was $1 billion versus $881 million in the prior-year period, an improvement of $120 million.
Working from the bottom of the slide upwards, the cash outflows from the discontinued operations component of our free cash flow was $59 million more than the prior-year period.
In the first nine months, we made $94 million of Change Program payments as compared to Refinitiv-related separation cost of $87 million in the prior-year period.
So if you adjust for these items, comparable free cash flow from continuing operations was just shy of $1.2 billion, $327 million better than the prior-year period.
In the third quarter, we achieved $42 million of annual run rate operating expense savings.
This brings the cumulative annual run rate operating expense savings up to $132 million for the Change Program.
We are forecasting to achieve $200 million of cumulative annual run rate operating expense savings by the end of this year.
As a reminder, we anticipate operating expense savings of $600 million by 2023 while reinvesting $200 million back into the business or net savings of $400 million.
Achieving $200 million of operating expense savings by the end of 2021 would put us a third of the way toward our goal of $600 million of gross savings by 2023.
Spend during the third quarter was $79 million, which included $53 million of opex and $26 million of capex.
Total spend in the first nine months of the year was $170 million.
We now anticipate opex and capex spending between $120 million and $150 million in the fourth quarter.
For the full year, we now expect Change Program opex and capex spend to be between $290 million and $320 million.
This is slightly lower than the previous guidance range of $300 million to $350 million.
We expect the lower spend in 2021 to carry over into 2022 as we are still expecting to incur approximately $600 million over the course of the program.
There is no change in the anticipated split of about 60% opex and 40% capex.
And as Steve outlined, today, we increased our full year outlook for total TR and Big 3 revenue growth.
We also increased our full year free cash flow guidance to approximately $1.2 billion.
Lastly, we reaffirm the balance of our full year 2021 guidance as well as our 2022 and 2023 guidance previously provided.

Summary:
Free cash flow for the year is now forecast to be approximately $1.2 billion.
We've already bought back $1.1 billion of stock, and we expect to complete the program before year end.
Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was $0.46, compared to $0.39 per share in the prior-year period.
Legal Professionals total and organic revenues increased 6% in the third quarter.
In Global Print, total and organic revenues declined 5%, at the lower end of the range we had forecast of minus 5% to minus 8%.
Starting with the total TR chart on the top left, we now estimate full year total and organic revenues will grow between 4.5% and 5%.
Starting with earnings per share, adjusted earnings per share was $0.46 per share versus $0.39 per share in the prior-year period, an 18% increase.
Lastly, we reaffirm the balance of our full year 2021 guidance as well as our 2022 and 2023 guidance previously provided.