Bloomberg L.P. Totally Explained

Everything about Bloomberg L P totally explained

Bloomberg L.P. was the largest financial software services, news and data company with 33% of international market share until the merger of its competitors Thomson Financial and Reuters into Thomson Reuters on 17 April 2008. Bloomberg L.P. was founded by Michael Bloomberg (current Mayor of New York City) with the help of Thomas Secunda and other partners (ex coworkers from Salomon Brothers) in 1981 and provides financial software tools such as analytics and equity trading platform, data services and news to financial companies and organizations around the world through the Bloomberg Terminal, its core money-generating product. Bloomberg L.P. has grown to include a global news service, including television, radio, the Internet and publications.
Its current headquarters are located at the Bloomberg Tower, 731 Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
It was incorporated as a Delaware Limited Partnership (LP) in 1981 and has been in business since 1983. Michael Bloomberg owns 72% of the group and receives an 84.55% share of the profits. Bloomberg's core business is leasing terminals to subscribers. It also runs Bloomberg Television, a financial TV station, and a business radio station WBBR in New York City. Forbes Magazine estimated, in 2000, Bloomberg's cash flow margins on its $2.3 billion in revenues exceed 35%. Bloomberg reports more than 100,000 users in North America, and another 130,000 in the rest of the world. Its competitors include Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones Newswires, and FACTSET.

History, Services & Products

In 1981, Mike Bloomberg left Salomon Brothers, where he was a general partner, and set up a company named Innovative Market Systems with his severance pay. In 1982, Merrill Lynch became the new company's first customer, installing 20 Market Master terminals and investing $30 million in the company. In 1986, the company was renamed Bloomberg L.P. and by 1987, 5000 terminals had been installed. Within a few years, ancillary products including Bloomberg Tradebook (a trading platform), the Bloomberg Messaging Service, and the Bloomberg newswire were launched.
Bloomberg prospered during the boom of the 1980s and 1990s. It expanded internationally, opening offices in Europe, Asia and Australia. In addition to its financial services offerings, Bloomberg launched its news services division in 1990. Bloomberg News (originally known as Bloomberg Business News) has some 2,000 staff in 125 bureaus around the world and is available on the web at www.bloomberg.com. It now provides information to approximately 350 newspapers and magazines worldwide, including The Economist, The New York Times and USA Today.

Organizational structure

All Bloomberg employees sit in front of one of the proprietary Bloomberg terminals, which they use to access market information, send emails and process data or words. The offices have mostly glass walls and have people generally seated at rows of desks.

Corporate governance

As of March 2001, members of the board of directors of Bloomberg include: Peter Grauer, Arthur Levitt, Jane Bryant Quinn, Frank Savage, and Thomas Secunda.

Criticism

The Bloomberg Professional service is comparatively expensive (around $1800 per terminal per month including exchange fees for live data) in the context of its nearest competitor, Reuters 3000 Xtra. Bloomberg was criticised for significant price rises from 2000 to 2003, which were very difficult times for its core customer base, many of whom were engaged in cost-cutting exercises. Bloomberg has also pushed the introduction of Bloomberg Anywhere, a biometrically authenticated login system for Bloomberg Professional. This has forced firms to provide full Bloomberg subscriptions for users who would otherwise have been able to share terminals. The Bloomberg Messaging system has become the standard means of written communication in certain markets and the loss of the messaging service and the associated client contact is a significant switching barrier for anybody wishing to use a competing product, thus forcing many market participants to pay for a full Bloomberg subscription just to use the messaging service.

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