Exhibit 99.4


                             Analyst Conference Call
                             Dick Harrington Script

Introduction

Thank you, John. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on such short
notice.

I'm sure you have all read the press release we issued this morning announcing
our intention to acquire Primark. I'd like to spend the next few minutes
detailing how this acquisition fits into Thomson's strategic framework and why
we think it is such a great addition

    o    For us,
    o    For our customers and
    o    For our shareholders.

As most of you know, The Thomson Corporation is sharply focused on being the
leading global provider of e-information and solutions to businesses and
professionals, in each of our targeted market groups.

Thomson Financial is our second largest market group with 1999 revenues of $1.44
billion. The acquisition of Primark will immediately enhance Thomson Financial's
position as a leading information provider to the financial services industry
globally.

Primark
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For those of you who are not familiar with Primark, it is a NYSE listed
corporation based in Boston. They had 1999 revenues of about $500 million. Over
85% of those sales were electronic - including 8% Internet-based.

Primark has 3,500 employees worldwide, with a strong presence in the UK, Europe
and the United States. They also have offices in Asia and Latin America.

Primark's products and services are very complementary to Thomson Financial.




1.   First, Primark has great content. They have extensive data and analytical
     tools that will significantly broaden Thomson Financial's customer
     offerings in important areas such as...Fundamental corporate data,
     brokerage and fund management data, UK market data and economic data...as
     well as providing high-level analytic tools and online services. Their
     portfolio includes such strong product brands as:
             o   A-T Financial Information
             o   Baseline
             o   Disclosure
             o   Datastream
             o   Global Access
             o   I/B/E/S (pronounced Eye-bess)

2.   Second, they have a broad global presence. Half of Primark's business is in
     Europe. This strong European presence, coupled with its operations in North
     America, Asia and Latin America, will immediately expand Thomson
     Financial's global presence and capabilities - a key requirement to
     capitalize on these high-growth market opportunities. This strong
     international presence will more than double Thomson Financial's revenues
     from outside of North America - from 9% to 20%

3.   Lastly, the combination of Primark with Thomson Financial will result in
     increased scale and resources to enable Thomson Financial to more
     effectively serve its customers on a global basis.

     With the addition of Primark, Thomson Financial will have nearly $2 billion
     in combined revenue and more than 10,000 employees located around the
     world.

     This will give us the additional talent and resources to help us develop
     value-added products and services, and deliver them more efficiently to our
     global customer base.





Conclusion

Before I turn it over to our CFO, Bob Daleo; I'd like to emphasize how
enthusiastic I am about this tremendous combination.

Primark has some terrific talent, headed by Joe Kasputys, their Chairman and
CEO. The addition of Primark will strengthen Thomson Financial's position as one
of the leading financial information companies in the world.

Now Bob will briefly review some of the key terms of the transaction.