Reuters has been in Tiverton for the past 14 years

The move, unveiled on 28 July in a simultaneous presentation to 1,100 staff worldwide, will see new products being developed at either Hyderabad or Bangalore.

But as made clear in documents seen by BBC News Online and distributed at the worldwide presentation to the content division - the section which generates the financial data Reuters sells to banks and other key customers - the move will almost certainly involve redundancies.

Among staff which could be affected are 350 based in Tiverton in Devon, another 65 in Edinburgh in Scotland, as well as a further 600 or so in New York and White Plains in the US, Singapore in East Asia, and in several other offices around the world.

Redundancy programme

The content operation supplies the data which appears on Reuters screens used by investors.

The company makes most of its money from the screens, rather than from selling news to papers and broadcasters, so the content division is at the core of the company.

Many companies are shifting call centres and other ancillary divisions to India to save money, but a shift of core operations is more rare.

Reuters is in the middle of a 3,000-staff redundancy and cost-cutting programme dubbed Fast Forward, outlined at a company-wide day of meetings on 11 July.

A Reuters spokeswoman said that no decision had been made yet on what, if any, functions would move to India to supplement the new products to be developed there, but that an announcement would be made by mid-September.

Any job losses, she said, would be included in the 3,000 already planned into Fast Forward.

The Fast Forward programme is an attempt to keep up with the burgeoning sales of competitors Bloomberg and Thomson Financial - both of whom claim their data is more accessible to users.

Commercial considerations

Reuters is one of the major employers in the Tiverton and has been in the town for the past 14 years.

The delay in the announcement of what will happen has irritated Tiverton MP Angela Browning.

She said: "I understand that people have to take account of commercial considerations.

"But, as a former businesswoman myself, I find it rather strange that they make one announcement but there's a long time gap before the fate of the local people is decided. That doesn't seem to gel."

Reuters pulled itself back to profit in the first six months of 2003.