The luck of the firedBloomberg LP founder and CEO Michael Bloomberg attributes the success of his company to three things: hard work, good luck, and people who are slightly smarter than those at other companies. Bloomberg's fondness of smart people is probably why his company exists in the first place. When Bloomberg was an employee at Salomon Brothers in the 1970s, his superiors thought he was bit too saucy for his own good. Strife with management finally led to Bloomberg's demotion from head of equity trading and sales to head of the systems department, and Bloomberg was finally sent packing altogether in 1981.
But the resourceful Bloomberg used a portion of his $10 million severance package to found his own company, called Innovative Marketing Systems. Over the course of the next year, he developed the Bloomberg terminal, a financial information system that allowed users to analyze bond data. Merrill Lynch was so impressed with the product that in 1982 it ordered 20 terminals, and invested $30 million in the company. Today, Michael Bloomberg owns 80 percent of the company, while Merrill Lynch controls the other 20 percent.
The blooming of Bloomberg
The company prospered during the boom in the 1980s. It expanded internationally, opening offices in Europe, Asia, and Australia. In 1990, the Bloomberg News Service was launched. It now provides information to hundreds of newspapers and magazines worldwide, including The Economist, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and USA Today. Bloomberg founded its 24-hour radio and television news services in 1992 and 1993, respectively. Since then the company has introduced Bloomberg Personal, a finance magazine; TRADEBOOK, an electronic platform for trading securities; and has started publishing the Bloomberg Press line of investment books.
The 18-year-old information distributor is second only to Reuters in providing the world with financial data. The company now has 75 news bureaus worldwide, and offers financial analysis, mutual fund information, breaking news, global market summaries, and audio/video on demand. It supplies brokerage houses, commercial banks, and government institutions in 100 countries around the world. Web accessible
Bloomberg has more than 100,000 terminals in place - subscribers pay $1,640 per terminal ($1,225 each for two or more) per month, which covers the terminal, Bloomberg's proprietary financial analysis software, and real-time reporting on worldwide capital markets. One mildly annoying fact: users can't download information from the system. However it is now possible to access some of the company's content (sans graphics) using LEXIS-NEXIS. The king of the big-ticket subscription, Bloomberg started pumping content on the Web in 1997, serving up an energy newsletter for $800 a month.
Interviewing the famous
In addition to nine international (local language) news channels, the company runs an executive interview series called "The Bloomberg Forum," which features the most talked-about businesspeople of the moment, including Michael Milken and AT&T chairman Michael Armstrong. The interviews are broadcast on Bloomberg Radio and Television.
Partnering up
In April 1998, Bloomberg agreed to a three-year partnership with America Online. Bloomberg became an anchor tenant in AOL's Business News Center, and provides other areas of the site with news coverage. More recently, Bloomberg has been lauded for its Electronic Bidding Platform, which allows investment banks to calculate and submit bids over a common platform. Brokers and dealers say the system is more secure and easier to use than existing solutions, such as the Internet-based MuniAuction and PARITY, an electronic bid-submission system recently acquired by Dalcomp. Bloomberg's platform is also desirable because it allows for changes to be made up to 30 seconds before a deadline.
The company also aligned itself with CLSA Global Emerging Markets in 1999 to form a Global Tradebook, providing for international transactions throughout 65 countries. With the aid of LendingTree.com, Bloomberg developed Bloomberg.com as well, a site that allows for transactions of research reports and possibly insurance over the web. MathSoft, Inc. also partnered with Bloomberg to help the company identify and visualize financial trends more efficiently.
Moving up and out
Bloomberg's headquarters may be moving from its current Lexington Avenue location in order to keep up with the 20 to 30 percent increase in employees that the company experiences yearly, officials say. The company also launched two new multimedia ventures in Malaysia in 1999 as part of its efforts to extend its coverage beyond that of just a media organization, and to expand its influence internationally. Additionally, Bloomberg Television pushed a campaign to increase the number of its television subscribers, since most of its viewing audience seemed to come from a small, upper-class segment of society.
