Bloomberg News parent would be sold if owner becomes president

Michael Bloomberg will sell Bloomberg LP, the financial-data and media company he co-founded nearly 40 years ago, if he is elected president, reports Wall Street Journal reporters Lukas I. Alpert and Tarini Parti.

Alpert and Parti report, “Mr. Bloomberg owns roughly 90% of the closely held data and media company he co-founded in 1981. According to Burton-Taylor International Consulting, a research firm that tracks financial-data companies, Bloomberg LP brought in approximately $10.5 billion in revenue in 2019, up 5.7% over the year before. Bloomberg LP provides news and data to some 325,000 customers, each paying a fixed price of $24,000 a year.

“The company’s news division brings in only about 3% of the company’s total revenue, according to the research firm, but has brought outsize attention during the campaign because of how it would cover its owner’s candidacy. In the past, Bloomberg News has refrained from covering Mr. Bloomberg’s wealth and the company itself. When Mr. Bloomberg announced his intention to run, the news unit said it would continue to not investigate its owner and would do the same for the other Democratic candidates. But it said it would cover the Trump administration as the sitting government.”

Read more here.