After 18 years at Thomson Reuters, including 71 earnings calls and eight investor days, it's time for my next adventure and to spend more time with my wife and family.
Two, we will transfer $9 million of revenue from the corporates business to our tax and accounting business, where it will be managed and where it fits better.
This dynamic enabled us to achieve 5% organic revenue growth for the full year 2021, the highest growth rate in over a decade, while also improving our underlying profitability and free cash flow.
Four of our five business segments again recorded organic revenue growth of 6% or greater and total company organic revenues grew 6%.
And we have achieved over $200 million in savings thus far, one-third of our $600 million target.
Fourth quarter reported and organic revenues were up 6%, attributable to strong results from the Big 3 businesses in Reuters.
And similar to the last quarter, this performance included 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 14% to $452 million due to cost related to the Change program, higher performance bonus expense and a discretionary investment of $25 million to better position the business for 2022, which Mike will discuss.
This resulted in a margin of 26.4%.
Excluding Change program, Costs, adjusted EBITDA margin was 31.1%.
Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was $0.43 compared to $0.54 per share in the prior year period.
The additional $25 million we invested in the quarter lowered adjusted earnings per share by $0.04.
The Big 3 businesses achieved organic revenue growth of 7%, reflecting strength across each of the businesses.
Legal's fourth quarter performance was again impressive with organic revenue growth of 6%, the third consecutive quarter of 6% growth.
Full year revenue growth was also 6%, the highest annual growth rate since 2008.
For example, Westlaw Edge continued to achieve strong sales growth in the end of the quarter with an annual contract value, or ACV, penetration of 65%, achieving the top end of our guidance with more opportunity in 2022 with a target of 70% to 75% penetration and the expected launch of Edge 2.0.
Third, our government business, which is managed within our Legal segment, grew 7% organically in Q4 and 9% for the year and achieved strong sales in Q4, setting it up well for strong growth in 2022.
Organic revenue growth continued to accelerate and was up 7% from 6% in Q3 and 4% in the first half of the year.
And tax and accounting had a terrific quarter and year with organic revenue growth of 9% for both periods and strong Q4 sales.
Reuters News organic revenues increased 12% in Q4 with growth across all of the business lines, particularly the professional business, which includes digital advertising, custom content and Reuters Events, which continues to recover from the negative impact of COVID-19 in 2020.
And finally, global print organic revenues declined 4%, more than expected due to a continued gradual return to office by our customers and higher third-party print revenues.
Adjusted EBITDA declined slightly and was just shy of $2 billion due to cost related to the Change program and higher performance bonus expense, resulting in a margin of 31%.
Excluding Change program costs, adjusted EBITDA margin was 33.9%, about 100 basis points higher than 2020.
Adjusted earnings per share for the year was $1.95 compared with $1.85 per share in the prior year.
During our investor day in March last year, I shared with you that we're investing in seven strategic growth priorities with the Big 3 segments.
These businesses grew 6.5% on a combined basis in 2021 with several growing double-digit and our foundational Westlaw product up 4%.
These investments are expected to continue to help accelerate organic growth and enable us to achieve our revenue growth target of 5.5% to 6% in 2023.
Additionally, we recently launched our new Thomson Reuters venture fund, which will invest up to $100 million of seed funding to start-up companies to cultivate innovation and expand our M&A pipeline.
We've made significant progress, which you can see on this slide, including 37% of our revenue is now on a cloud solution, and we're on track to achieve our target of 90% of our revenue available in the cloud by the end of 2023.
SMB digital sales increased to 29% as a percentage of total sales.
We also reduced our global footprint of office locations from 102 to 46 and our call centers from 99 to 77.
We now forecast total company organic revenue growth of approximately 5% for 2022 and 5.5% to 6% for 2023.
Let me remind you that 2021's organic revenue growth of 5% included about 100 basis point benefit from easier year-over-year comps related to COVID-19 items in 2020.
Big 3 organic revenue growth is forecast between 6% and 6.5% in 2022 and 6.5% to 7% in 2023.
We forecast an adjusted EBITDA margin of 35% for 2022 and between 39% and 40% for 2023.
And free cash flow is now forecast at about $1.3 billion for 2022 and between $1.9 billion to $2 billion with free cash flow per share between $3.90 and $4.10 for 2023.
Let me start by discussing the fourth quarter revenue performance of our Big 3 segments.
Revenues were up 7% organically and at constant currency for the quarter.
This marks the sixth consecutive quarter our Big 3 segments have grown at least 5%.
Legal professionals' total revenues increased 5% and organic revenues increased 6% in the fourth quarter.
Recurring organic revenue grew 6% and transaction revenues increased 6%.
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, supported by the planned release of Edge 2.0 during the second half of this year.
Our government business, which is reported within legal and includes much of our risk and compliance businesses, grew 7% for the quarter and 9% for the year and exited Q4 with strong sales and good momentum entering 2022.
In our corporates segment, total and organic revenues increased 7% for the quarter due to recurring organic revenue growth of 7% and transactions organic revenue growth of 4%.
And transactions organic revenue increased 10%.
Fourth quarter performance was very strong with total and organic revenue growth of 12%.
In global print, total and organic revenues declined 4%, better than expected.
On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter total and organic revenues each increased 6%.
Starting on the left side, total company organic revenue for the fourth quarter 2021 was up 6% compared to 2% in the prior year period, which was impacted by COVID.
Fourth quarter 2021 performance for the Big 3 was strong with organic revenues up 7% compared to 5% in the same period last year.
This was partly driven by strong performance in the corporates segment, which grew 7% organically compared to 3% in Q4 2020.
Total company recurring organic revenues grew 6% in Q4, 110 basis points above Q4 2020 with Big 3 recurring organic revenues up 7%, above last year's fourth quarter growth of 6%.
Transaction revenues in Q4 were up 16% compared to the prior year period, when COVID affected our implementation services and the Reuters Events business.
Adjusted EBITDA for the Big 3 segments was $488 million, down 2% from the prior year period, driven by higher performance bonus expense.
Fourth quarter costs also included a discretionary investment of $25 million related to go-to-market initiatives, product development initiatives and data and analytics tools to support the customer experience to better position us for 2022.
Adjusted EBITDA was $15 million, $9 million more than the prior year period, driven by revenue growth.
Global print's adjusted EBITDA was flat at $61 million with a margin of 35.9%, 130 basis points higher than Q4 2020.
So in aggregate, total company adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $452 million, a 14% decrease versus Q4 2020.
Excluding costs related to the Change program, adjusted EBITDA increased 1%.
Fourth quarter's adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.4% and was 31.1% on an underlying basis, excluding costs related to the Change program.
For the full year, total company adjusted EBITDA margin was 31%.
Excluding costs related to the Change program, full year adjusted EBITDA margin was 33.9%.
Starting with earnings per share, adjusted earnings per share was $0.43 per share versus $0.54 per share in the prior year period.
Of note, fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share was reduced by approximately $0.04 due to the additional $25 million investment in Q4.
Reported free cash flow was $1.3 billion, $74 million lower than in 2020.
Working from the bottom of the slide upwards, the cash outflows from the discontinued operations component of our free cash flow was $51 million more than the prior year.
For the full year, we made $166 million of Change program payments as compared to Refinitiv-related separation cost of $95 million in the prior year.
So if you adjust for these items, comparable free cash flow from continuing operations was just shy of $1.5 billion, $189 million better than the prior year.
In the fourth quarter, we achieved $85 million of annual run rate operating expense savings.
This brings the cumulative annual run rate operating expense savings to $217 million for the Change; program, which exceeds our target of $200 million.
This puts us more than a third of the way toward achieving our goal of $600 million of gross savings by 2023.
As a reminder, we anticipate reinvesting $200 million of the projected $600 million savings back into the business for a net savings of $400 million.
Spend during the fourth quarter was $125 million, comprised of $78 million of opex and $47 million of capex.
For the full year, Change program opex and capex spend totaled $295 million, at the lower end of the range of $290 million to $320 million we have forecast last year.
We are still expecting to incur approximately $600 million over the course of the program.
And there is no change in the anticipated split of about 60% opex and 40% capex.
We generated $1.3 billion of free cash flow last year.
We had $0.8 billion of cash on hand at December 31.
We have an undrawn $1.8 billion revolving credit facility.
And we also have a $1.8 billion commercial paper program.
We received notices from the U.K. tax authorities requiring us to pay about $80 million in March related to an ongoing tax matter.
The pre-tax value of our 72.4 million shares is currently $7 billion, or an estimated $14 per share in TR stock price.
In March 2021, we sold 10.1 million shares to pay taxes related to the transaction.
We expect to receive dividends from LSEG of more than $75 million in 2022 based on LSEG's current annual dividend payout.
And finally, today, we announced a 10% annualized dividend increase, the largest percentage increase since 2008, taking our annual dividend to $1.78 per share, up $0.16 per share from $1.62.
We forecast organic revenue growth of about 5% in 2022 and 5.5% to 6% in 2023.
We forecast the Big 3 organic revenues to grow between 6% and 6.5% in 2022 and between 6.5% and 7% in 2023.
We also believe our legal business can grow 5% to 7% over the cycle versus the 5% to 6% we mentioned at investor day last year with continued margin expansion.
We forecast adjusted EBITDA margin in 2022 will increase to about 35% with an underlying margin of over 37%, putting us on a path to achieve our 2023 margin target of 39% to 40%.
Free cash flow is expected to be approximately $1.3 billion in 2022 and includes Change program spend of over $300 million.
Free cash flow is expected to increase to between $1.9 billion and $2 billion in 2023, driven by higher revenue growth and savings and efficiencies from the Change program.
I will also note, we expect our first quarter revenue growth rate and adjusted EBITDA margin to be comparable to our full year 2022 guidance targets.
In 2021, our effective or book tax rate was 14% and included a 200-basis-point benefit from the reversal of reserves for prior tax year.
We also forecast in 2022 minimum taxes this year, which bumps the expected ETR up to between 19% and 21%.
And as a rule of thumb, our cash tax rate is forecast to be approximately 5% below our book or effective tax rate.
This is fully reflected in our 2023 free cash flow guidance of $1.9 billion to $2 billion.
And we're confident in achieving our $600 million savings target and our $100 million incremental revenue target.

Summary:
This dynamic enabled us to achieve 5% organic revenue growth for the full year 2021, the highest growth rate in over a decade, while also improving our underlying profitability and free cash flow.
And similar to the last quarter, this performance included 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 14% to $452 million due to cost related to the Change program, higher performance bonus expense and a discretionary investment of $25 million to better position the business for 2022, which Mike will discuss.
Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was $0.43 compared to $0.54 per share in the prior year period.
And tax and accounting had a terrific quarter and year with organic revenue growth of 9% for both periods and strong Q4 sales.
Reuters News organic revenues increased 12% in Q4 with growth across all of the business lines, particularly the professional business, which includes digital advertising, custom content and Reuters Events, which continues to recover from the negative impact of COVID-19 in 2020.
Adjusted EBITDA declined slightly and was just shy of $2 billion due to cost related to the Change program and higher performance bonus expense, resulting in a margin of 31%.
We now forecast total company organic revenue growth of approximately 5% for 2022 and 5.5% to 6% for 2023.
Let me remind you that 2021's organic revenue growth of 5% included about 100 basis point benefit from easier year-over-year comps related to COVID-19 items in 2020.
This marks the sixth consecutive quarter our Big 3 segments have grown at least 5%.
Legal professionals' total revenues increased 5% and organic revenues increased 6% in the fourth quarter.
In our corporates segment, total and organic revenues increased 7% for the quarter due to recurring organic revenue growth of 7% and transactions organic revenue growth of 4%.
And transactions organic revenue increased 10%.
In global print, total and organic revenues declined 4%, better than expected.
On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter total and organic revenues each increased 6%.
Fourth quarter 2021 performance for the Big 3 was strong with organic revenues up 7% compared to 5% in the same period last year.
So in aggregate, total company adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $452 million, a 14% decrease versus Q4 2020.
Fourth quarter's adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.4% and was 31.1% on an underlying basis, excluding costs related to the Change program.
Starting with earnings per share, adjusted earnings per share was $0.43 per share versus $0.54 per share in the prior year period.
This brings the cumulative annual run rate operating expense savings to $217 million for the Change; program, which exceeds our target of $200 million.
The pre-tax value of our 72.4 million shares is currently $7 billion, or an estimated $14 per share in TR stock price.
And finally, today, we announced a 10% annualized dividend increase, the largest percentage increase since 2008, taking our annual dividend to $1.78 per share, up $0.16 per share from $1.62.
We forecast organic revenue growth of about 5% in 2022 and 5.5% to 6% in 2023.
We also believe our legal business can grow 5% to 7% over the cycle versus the 5% to 6% we mentioned at investor day last year with continued margin expansion.
I will also note, we expect our first quarter revenue growth rate and adjusted EBITDA margin to be comparable to our full year 2022 guidance targets.
In 2021, our effective or book tax rate was 14% and included a 200-basis-point benefit from the reversal of reserves for prior tax year.
And as a rule of thumb, our cash tax rate is forecast to be approximately 5% below our book or effective tax rate.