User:MSbordone/Bloomberg Sports



Bloomberg L.P. is a privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P. was founded by Michael Bloomberg (current Mayor of New York City) with the help of Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, and Charles Zegar in 1981 and a 30% ownership investment by Merrill Lynch. The company 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 (via its Bloomberg Professional Service), its core money-generating product. Many customers use only a small fraction of the machines' 30,146 functions. Bloomberg L.P. has grown to include a global news service, including television, radio, the Internet and printed publications.

Its current headquarters are located at the Bloomberg Tower, 731 Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building is also known as One Beacon Court for the lighted rectangular beacon that caps the tower and the paved courtyard at the ground level.

It was formed as a Delaware Limited Partnership in 1981 and has been in business since 1983. Michael Bloomberg owns 85% of the group. 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 at a loss. Bloomberg's revenue for last year (2009) was estimated at $6.25 billion. Based on that estimate, the new projections would push revenue to nearly $6.9 billion this year (2010). There are currently over 300,000 Bloomberg Terminal subscribers worldwide.Its competitors include SNL Financial, Thomson Reuters, Capital IQ, Dow Jones Newswires, FactSet Research Systems and smaller companies such as New York Financial Press. In late 1996 Bloomberg bought back one-third of Merrill Lynch's 30 percent stake in his company for $200 million valuing the company at $2.0 billion. In July 2008, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell its 20% stake in the firm back to Bloomberg, for a reported $4.43 billion, valuing the firm at approximately $22.5 billion.

History, services and products
In 1981, Michael Bloomberg was fired from Salomon Brothers, where he was a general partner and given a $10 million severance package. Using this money, Bloomberg went on to set up a company named Innovative Market Systems. In 1982, Merrill Lynch became the new company's first customer, installing 22 Market Master terminals and investing $30 million in the company. In 1986, the company was renamed Bloomberg L.P. and by 1988, 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.

In addition to its financial services offerings, Bloomberg launched its news services division in 1990. Bloomberg News (originally known as Bloomberg Business News) has over 2,000 employees and 145 bureaus around the world, producing more than 5,000 stories daily. It now provides information to approximately 350 newspapers and magazines worldwide, including The Economist, The New York Times and USA Today.

In order to run for the position of Mayor of New York against Democrat Mark Green in 2001, Mike Bloomberg gave up his position of CEO at Bloomberg and appointed Lex Fenwick as CEO in his stead. Daniel Doctoroff, former deputy mayor in the Bloomberg administration, now serves as president. Peter Grauer is the chairman.

In September 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of more than 80 female employees, who argue Bloomberg L.P. engaged in a pattern of discrimination against pregnant women who took maternity leave. The suit alleges that 'Michael Bloomberg is responsible for the creation of the systemic, top-down culture of discrimination' at the company. A Bloomberg L.P. spokeswoman said: 'We are confident that once all the facts come out they will demonstrate that the claims have no merit.'

Bloomberg News was the subject of an investigative feature by Vanity Fair in December 2008.

In 2009, Bloomberg acquired Businessweek, a consumer oriented business magazine and Web property, from McGraw-Hill; and New Energy Finance, now called Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a data company focused on energy investment and carbon markets research based in the U.K. The same year, The New York Times covered Bloomberg's growth and aspirations in a full-length media section feature.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance is a specialist provider of financial information and research to the renewable energy technology sector and its investors worldwide.

Corporate governance
As of July 2010, members of the board of directors of Bloomberg include: Peter Grauer, Daniel Doctoroff, Thomas Secunda, Arthur Levitt, Jane Bryant Quinn, Frank Savage, Richard DeScherer and Hugh Lowenstein.

Litigation against Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System
Bloomberg L.P. News brought a lawsuit against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to force the Board to reveal the identities of firms for which it has provided guarantees. Bloomberg, L.P. won at the trial court level. On August 24, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals refused to revisit a request by the Fed to review an earlier Court of Appeals decision requiring the agency to release the records. On August 27, 2010, the court agreed to delay implementation of the ruling until Oct. 19 so that the Fed may appeal to the Supreme Court. the Fed has indicated it will do so.