The Scoop
In the decades since Michael Bloomberg founded his bond-pricing data provider and built it into a media and markets giant, the question has swirled on Wall Street: What does he plan to do with it?
Some clues: Executives from the company have been having preliminary talks with investment bankers about a potential IPO or other transaction, people familiar with the matter said. The conversations were described as informal, and C-suite executives at Bloomberg have given little indication of what the former New York City mayor’s plan is, or if he has settled on one at all.
The 84-year-old Mr. Bloomberg recently transferred some of his personal stock in Bloomberg LP to Bloomberg Philanthropies, other people familiar with the matter said — a move that would minimize taxes if the company went public or sold a stake.
Mr. Bloomberg has previously said he plans to transfer the business to his foundation. It couldn’t be determined how often, if ever, he has made similar stock transfers. He owns an estimated 88% of Bloomberg LP, according to Forbes, which pegs the company’s annual revenue at $15 billion and his personal fortune at $109 billion, ranking him among the top 20 richest people in the world.
The former presidential candidate, meanwhile, remains ever-present at Bloomberg LP, where he routinely arrives by 7 am at its Midtown headquarters, regularly chatting in the pantry with some of his 26,000 employees and appearing at company events.
“Mike controls the firm, is the majority shareholder, and has no plans to sell the company,” said Ty Trippet, a Bloomberg LP spokesman.
Know More
Bloomberg LP has grown from a small bond-pricing terminal maker that Mr. Bloomberg started in 1981 into a data and media conglomerate. Its terminals sell for $30,000 or more a year and serve as data provider, trade executor, and direct-message portal for more than 300,000 finance professionals globally. Its 2,700-person newsroom is one of the largest in the world, bigger than that of The New York Times.
The company could be worth $80 billion or more, say bankers who have kept a close eye on it, a big bite for any buyer. Most of the big exchange operators have already made their data bets, such as London Stock Exchange Group’s purchase of Refinitiv, the former data arm of Reuters. But the chance to buy a minority stake in Bloomberg, which has decades of proprietary market data, might tempt everyone from AI labs to exchanges to asset managers.
In 2023, Bloomberg replaced the small circle of personal advisers who’d run the board for two decades with a professionalized one, including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, veteran banker Bob Steel, and Mark Carney, then a senior Brookfield executive. (Carney’s chairman role has been empty since he left to run successfully for prime minister of Canada in early 2025.)
Notable
- “Bloomberg LP is a data behemoth so enmeshed with the financial industry that it may be of greater importance than any single investment group,” the FT’s Robin Wigglesworth wrote in 2023.
- The Bloomberg terminal vs. AI, from WSJ.
- What happens when you give a multibillion-dollar company to a charity? Patagonia found out.