The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British
daily newspaper printed in
broadsheet
A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...
and published digitally that focuses on business and economic
current affairs Current affairs may refer to:
News
* Current Affairs (magazine), ''Current Affairs'' (magazine) a bimonthly magazine of culture and politics.
* Current affairs (news format): a genre of broadcast journalism
* Current Affairs, former name for Behi ...
. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company,
Nikkei Nikkei can refer to:
*, abbreviated , Nikkei, a large media corporation in Japan
*, abbreviated , Nikkei, a major business newspaper published in Japan
*, a Japanese stock market index, published by ''Nihon Keizai Shimbun''
*, often simply ''Nikkei ...
, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015,
Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for
£844 million (
US$1.32 billion) after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions.
The newspaper has a prominent focus on
financial journalism and economic analysis over
generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. The daily sponsors an
annual book award and publishes a "
Person of the Year __NOTOC__
Person of the Year or Man of the Year is an award given to an individual by any type of organization. Most often, it is given by a newspaper or other news outlet to annually recognize a public person. Such awards have typically been awa ...
" feature.
The paper was founded in January 1888 as the ''London Financial Guide'' before rebranding a month later as the ''Financial Times''. It was first circulated around metropolitan London by
James Sheridan, who, along with his brother and
Horatio Bottomley, sought to report on city business opposite the ''
Financial News''. The succeeding half-century of competition between the two papers eventually culminated in a
1945 merger, led by
Brendan Bracken, which established it as
one of the largest business newspapers in the world. Globalisation from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries facilitated editorial expansion for the ''FT'', with the paper adding opinion columns, special reports,
political cartoons,
readers' letters, book reviews, technology articles and global politics features. The paper is often characterised by its light-pink (salmon) newsprint. It is supplemented by its lifestyle magazine (''
FT Magazine)'', weekend edition (''
FT Weekend'') and some industry publications.
The
editorial stance of the ''Financial Times'' centres on
economic liberalism, particularly
free trade and
free markets. Since its founding it has supported
liberal democracy, favouring
classically liberal
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics; civil liberties under the rule of law with especial emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, econom ...
politics and policies from international governments; its newsroom is independent from its editorial board, and it is considered a
newspaper of record
A newspaper of record is a major national newspaper with large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative and independent; they are thus "newspapers of record by reputation" and include some of the o ...
. Due to its history of economic commentary, the ''FT'' publishes a
variety of financial indices, primarily the
FTSE All-Share Index. Since the late 20th century, its typical depth of coverage has linked the paper with a
white-collar, educated, and financially literate readership. Because of this tendency, the ''FT'' has traditionally been regarded as a
centre to
centre-right liberal,
neoliberal
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
, and
conservative-liberal newspaper. The ''Financial Times'' is headquartered in
Bracken House at 1 Friday Street, near the city's financial centre, where it maintains its
publishing
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
house, corporate centre, and main editorial office.
History
The ''FT'' was launched as the ''London Financial Guide'' on 10 January 1888, renaming itself the ''Financial Times'' on 13 February the same year. Describing itself as the friend of "The Honest Financier, the Bona Fide Investor, the Respectable Broker, the Genuine Director, and the Legitimate Speculator", it was a four-page journal. The readership was the financial community of the
City of London, its only rival being the more daring and slightly older (founded in 1884) ''Financial News''. On 2 January 1893 the ''FT'' began printing on light pink paper to distinguish it from the similarly named ''Financial News'': at the time it was also cheaper to print on unbleached paper (several other more general newspapers, such as ''
The Sporting Times'', had the same policy), but nowadays it is more expensive as the paper has to be dyed specially.
After 57 years of rivalry the ''Financial Times'' and the ''Financial News'' were merged in 1945 by
Brendan Bracken to form a single six-page newspaper. The ''Financial Times'' brought a higher circulation while the ''Financial News'' provided much of the editorial talent. The ''Lex'' column was also introduced from ''Financial News''.
Gordon Newton
Sir Leslie Gordon Newton (16 September 1907 – 31 August 1998) was an English journalist and editor of the ''Financial Times'' for 22 years, from 1950 until 1972. He is generally considered to be one of the most successful British newspaper ed ...
, a Cambridge graduate, took over as Editor in 1949, and immediately introduced a policy (then most unusual in
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...
) of direct recruitment of new university graduates, mainly from Oxbridge, as its trainee journalists. Many of them proceeded to have distinguished careers elsewhere in journalism and British public life, and became the mainstay of the paper's own editorial strengths until the 1990s. The first such 'direct recruit' was (the future leading British economist) Andrew Shonfield; the second was (later Sir) William Rees-Mogg who went on, via ''
The Sunday Times'', to edit ''
The Times'' in 1967 following its acquisition by Roy Thomson. Other FT Oxbridge recruits included the future
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor i ...
Nigel Lawson. The FT's distinctive recruitment policy for Fleet Street journalists was never popular with the
National Union of Journalists and ceased in 1966 following the recruitment of Richard Lambert from Oxford, himself a future Editor of the FT. Meanwhile, Pearson had bought the paper in 1957. Over the years the paper grew in size, readership and breadth of coverage. It established correspondents in cities around the world, reflecting a renewed impetus in the
world economy
The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans of the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities which are conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumption, ...
towards
globalisation
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
. As cross-border trade and capital flows increased during the 1970s, the ''FT'' began international expansion, facilitated by developments in technology and the growing acceptance of English as the international language of business. On 1 January 1979 the first ''FT'' (Continental Europe edition) was printed outside the UK, in Frankfurt; printing in the U.S. began in July 1985.
Since then, with increased international coverage, the ''FT'' has become a global newspaper, printed in 22 locations with five international editions to serve the UK, continental Europe, the U.S., Asia and the Middle East.
The European edition is distributed in continental Europe and Africa. It is printed Monday to Saturday at five centres across Europe, reporting on matters concerning the European Union, the
euro
The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
and European corporate affairs. In 1994 ''FT'' launched a luxury lifestyle magazine, ''How To Spend It''. In 2009 it launched a standalone website for the magazine. On 13 May 1995 the ''Financial Times'' group made its first foray into the online world with the launch of FT.com. This provided a summary of news from around the globe, which was supplemented in February 1996 with stock price coverage. The second-generation site was launched in spring 1996. The site was funded by advertising and contributed to the online advertising market in the UK in the late 1990s. Between 1997 and 2000 the site underwent several revamps and changes of strategy, as the FT Group and Pearson reacted to changes online. ''FT'' introduced subscription services in 2002. FT.com is one of the few UK news sites successfully funded by individual subscription.
In 1997 the ''FT'' launched a U.S. edition, printed in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando and Washington, D.C., although the newspaper was first printed outside New York City in 1985. In September 1998 the ''FT'' became the first UK-based newspaper to sell more copies internationally than within the UK. In 2000 the ''Financial Times'' started publishing a German-language edition, ''
Financial Times Deutschland'', with a news and editorial team based in Hamburg. Its initial circulation in 2003 was 90,000. It was originally a joint venture with a German publishing firm,
Gruner + Jahr. In January 2008 the ''FT'' sold its 50% stake to its German partner. ''FT Deutschland'' never made a profit and is said to have accumulated losses of €250 million over 12 years. It closed on 7 December 2012. The ''Financial Times'' launched a new weekly supplement for the fund management industry on 4 February 2002. ''FT fund management'' (FTfm) was and still is distributed with the paper every Monday. FTfm is the world's largest-circulation fund management title. Since 2005 the ''FT'' has sponsored the annual
''Financial Times'' and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.
On 23 April 2007 the ''FT'' unveiled a "refreshed" version of the newspaper and introduced a new slogan, "We Live in Financial Times". In 2007 the ''FT'' pioneered a
metered paywall, which let visitors to its website read a limited number of free articles during any one month before asking them to pay. Four years later the ''FT'' launched its
HTML5 mobile internet app. Smartphones and tablets now drive 12% of subscriptions and 19% of traffic to FT.com. In 2012 the number of digital subscribers surpassed the circulation of the newspaper for the first time and the ''FT'' drew almost half of its revenue from subscriptions rather than advertising.
The ''FT'' has been available on
Bloomberg Terminal
The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access Bloomberg Professional Services through which u ...
since 2010 and on the
Wisers platform since 2013. From 2015, instead of the metered paywall on the website, visitors were given unlimited free access for one month, after which they needed to subscribe.
Pearson sold the Financial Times Group to
Nikkei, Inc.
Nikkei, Inc. is a Japanese media company which owns ''The Nikkei'' and the ''Financial Times''. Its first publication was in 1876 with the publication of ''The Chugai Bukka Shimpo (Domestic and Foreign Prices News)''. In 1946, the company name wa ...
for
£844 million (
US$1.32 billion) in July 2015.
In 2016, the ''Financial Times'' acquired a controlling stake in Alpha Grid, a London-based media company specialising in the development and production of quality branded content across a range of channels, including broadcast, video, digital, social and events. In 2018, the ''Financial Times'' acquired a controlling stake in
Longitude, a specialist provider of
thought leadership and research services to a multinational corporate and institutional client base. This investment built on the ''Financial Times'' recent growth in several business areas, including branded content via the acquisition of Alpha Grid, and conferences and events through ''Financial Times Live'' and extends the ''FT'' traditional commercial offering into a wider set of integrated services. In 2020, reporter Mark Di Stefano resigned from the ''Financial Times'' after hacking into
Zoom calls at other media organisations including ''
The Independent'' and the ''
Evening Standard''.
In 2020, the retraction of an opinion piece by a reporter for the ''Financial Times'' generated a controversy about the editorial independence of the paper from outside political pressure. The controversy followed the withdrawal by the newspaper's editor of an opinion piece by ''FT'' Brussels correspondent Mehreen Khan that was critical of French President
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
's policy towards Muslim minorities in France. The piece was withdrawn from the ''FT'' website on the same day as its publication. President Macron subsequently published a letter in the ''FT'' directly responding to the arguments of the original opinion piece, even if it the original opinion piece was no longer available on the website of the newspaper.
The editor of the ''FT''
Roula Khalaf
Roula Khalaf ( ar, رولا خلف) is a British-Lebanese journalist who is the editor of the ''Financial Times'', having been its deputy editor and foreign editor. She succeeded Lionel Barber as editor on 20 January 2020.
Early life
Khalaf was ...
who took the decision to withdraw the initial article, acknowledged having been contacted by the
Élysée regarding the article and defended her decision on the basis purely of several factual errors in the original piece by Mehreen Khan.
Wirecard exposé
In January 2019, the ''FT'' began a series of
investigative articles detailing fraud suspicions at German payments group
Wirecard. When the Wirecard share price plunged, German news media speculated that
market manipulation was behind this attack on a German corporate, focusing on the lead author of the ''FT'' series, Dan McCrum. The Public prosecutor's office in
Munich subsequently launched an investigation. After the formal complaint of an investor, Wirecard and the German
Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the responsible state's attorney announced investigations into several ''FT'' journalists.
On 22 June 2020 and after 18 months of investigations and an external audit, Wirecard announced that €1.9 billion worth of cash reported in its accounts "may not exist". The company subsequently filed for
insolvency. BaFin itself became subject of a
European Securities and Markets Authority investigation for its response to the scandal.
Audience
According to the Global Capital Markets Survey, which measures readership habits amongst most senior financial decision makers in the world's largest financial institutions, the ''Financial Times'' is considered the most important business read, reaching 36% of the sample population, 11% more than ''
The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), its main rival. ''
The Economist'', which was once 50% owned by ''FT'', reaches 32%. ''FT'' ''
The Banker'' also proved vital reading, reaching 24%. In addition ''FT'' was regarded as the most credible publication in reporting financial and economic issues among the Worldwide Professional Investment Community audience. ''The Economist'' was also rated the third most credible title by most influential professional investors, while the ''WSJ'' was second.
Content
The ''FT'' is split into two sections. The first section covers domestic and international news, editorial commentary on politics and economics from ''FT'' journalists such as
Martin Wolf,
Gillian Tett and
Edward Luce, and opinion pieces from globally renowned leaders, policymakers, academics and commentators. The second section consists of financial data and news about companies and markets. Despite being generally regarded as primarily a financial newspaper, it does also contain TV listings, weather and other more informal articles. In 2021 and 2022, the outlet began focusing more on the cryptocurrency industry, launching a Digital Assets Dashboard, publishing multi-asset crypto indexes, starting a Cryptofinance newsletter dedicated to digital assets, and recruiting more journalists to cover the sector. About 110 of its 475 journalists are outside the United Kingdom.
The ''Lex'' column
The ''Lex'' column is a daily feature on the back page of the first section. It features analyses and opinions covering global economics and finance. The ''FT'' calls ''Lex'' its agenda-setting column. The column first appeared on Monday, 1 October 1945. The name may originally have stood for ''Lex Mercatoria'', a Latin expression meaning literally "merchant law". It was conceived by
Hargreaves Parkinson for the ''Financial News'' in the 1930s and moved to the ''Financial Times'' when the two merged.
''Lex'' boasts some distinguished alumni who have gone on to make careers in business and government—including
Nigel Lawson (former Conservative
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor i ...
),
Richard Lambert (
CBI director and former member of the
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...
's monetary policy committee), Martin Taylor (former chief executive of
Barclays
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
), John Makinson (chairman and chief executive of
Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
), John Gardiner (former chairman of
Tesco),
David Freud (former
UBS
UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...
banker and Labour adviser, now a Conservative peer), John Kingman (former head of
UKFI and a banker at
Rothschild's), George Graham (
RBS banker),
Andrew Balls
Andrew Balls is PIMCO's Chief Investment Officer for Global Fixed Income. He is a former ''Financial Times'' journalist. He is younger brother to the former UK Shadow Chancellor and former government minister, Ed Balls.
He graduated from Oxford ...
(head of European portfolio management at
PIMCO
PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC) is an American investment management firm focusing on active fixed income management worldwide. PIMCO manages investments in many asset classes such as fixed income, equities, commodities, asset ...
) and
Jo Johnson
Joseph Edmund Johnson, Baron Johnson of Marylebone, (born 23 December 1971) is a British politician who was Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation from July to September 2019, as well as previously from 2015 to 2 ...
(former Conservative Member of Parliament
for Orpington).
''FT Weekend''
The ''FT'' publishes a Saturday edition of the newspaper called the ''Financial Times Weekend''. It consists of international economic and political news, ''Companies & Markets'', ''Life & Arts'', ''House & Home'' and ''
FT Magazine''.
''How to Spend It''
''How to Spend It'' (''HTSI'') is a weekly magazine published with ''FT Weekend''. Founded and launched by Julia Carrick with Lucia van der Post as founding editor,
its articles concern
luxury goods such as
yachts,
mansion
A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word '' manse'' originally defined a property l ...
s,
apartment
An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...
s,
horlogerie,
haute couture
''Haute couture'' (; ; French for 'high sewing', 'high dressmaking') is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design that is constructed by hand from start-to-finish. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became th ...
and
automobiles
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as ...
, as well as fashion and columns by individuals in the arts, gardening, food, and hotel and travel industries. ''How to Spend It'' started in 1967 as a one-page consumer goods feature in the newspaper, which was edited by Sheila Black, a former actor and ''FT'' first female journalist.
To celebrate its 15th anniversary, ''FT'' launched the online version of this publication on 3 October 2009.
Some media commentators were taken aback by the online launch of a website supporting
conspicuous consumption
In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen co ...
during the financial
austerity
Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spend ...
of the
late-2000s recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...
.
The magazine has been derided in rival publishers' blogs, as "repellent" in the ''Telegraph'' and "a latter-day ''
Ab Fab'' manual" in the ''Guardian''. A 'well-thumbed' copy of the supplement was found when rebel forces broke into
Colonel Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by '' The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...
's Tripoli compound during the
2011 Libyan Civil War
The First Libyan Civil War was an armed conflict in 2011 in the North African country of Libya that was fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and rebel groups that were seeking to oust his government. It erupted with the Liby ...
.
In September 2021 Arabic version of ''HTSI'' was launched by
Othman Al Omeir, founder of ''
Elaph
Elaph ( ar, إيلاف; ''Solidarity'') is the first daily Arabic independent online newspaper and is not associated with any established print or broadcast medium.
History and profile
''Elaph'' was launched by Elaph Publishing in London in 2001 ...
'' online newspaper.
''HTSI Arabic'' is published in London.
[
]
Editorial stance
The ''FT'' advocates free markets and is in favour of globalisation
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
. During the 1980s, it supported Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
's monetarist
Monetarism is a school of thought in monetary economics that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. Monetarist theory asserts that variations in the money supply have major influences on national ...
policies. It has supported the UK Labour Party in the past, including at the general election in 1992 when Neil Kinnock was Labour leader. The ''FT'' editorials tend to be pro-European. The ''FT'' was firmly opposed to the Iraq War.
In the 2010 United Kingdom general election
The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom und ...
, the ''FT'' was receptive to the Liberal Democrats' positions on civil liberties and political reform, and praised the then Labour Party leader Gordon Brown for his response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, but on balance it backed the Conservatives, while questioning their tendency to Euroscepticism. In the 2015 United Kingdom general election
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Loca ...
, the ''FT'' called for the continuation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that had governed for the previous five years. In the 2017 United Kingdom general election
The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing ...
, a ''Financial Times'' editorial reluctantly backed Conservative Theresa May over Labour Jeremy Corbyn, while warning about her stance on immigration and the Eurosceptic elements in her party.
The modern ''FT'' is a product of a merger of two smaller newspapers in 1945
1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat.
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
Januar ...
; since that time, the paper had backed the Conservatives fairly consistently, but Labour's tacking to the centre, combined with the Conservatives' embracement of Euroscepticism, led the ''FT'' to reverse course and back Labour from 1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
until 2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
, when the ''FT'' returned to the Conservative party. Euroscepticism further drove a wedge between the ''FT'' and the Conservatives in 2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
, when the paper refused to make an endorsement, appalled at Labour's socialist economic policies (for wanting to "reverse, not revise, the Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s") and the Conservatives commitment to a hard Brexit.
United States politics
In the 2008 United States presidential election
The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator fro ...
, the ''Financial Times'' endorsed Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
. While it raised concerns over hints of protectionism, it praised his ability to "engage the country's attention", his calls for a bipartisan politics, and his plans for " comprehensive health-care reform". The ''FT'' favoured Obama again in the 2012 United States presidential election
The 2012 United States presidential election was the 57th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Joe Biden, were re-el ...
. The ''FT'' endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 United States presidential election
The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
and Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election
The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial United States presidential election, presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ticket of former Vice Pres ...
.
Ownership and related publications
On 23 July 2015, Nikkei, Inc.
Nikkei, Inc. is a Japanese media company which owns ''The Nikkei'' and the ''Financial Times''. Its first publication was in 1876 with the publication of ''The Chugai Bukka Shimpo (Domestic and Foreign Prices News)''. In 1946, the company name wa ...
agreed to buy the Financial Times Group, a division of Pearson plc
Pearson plc is a British multinational corporation, multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England.
It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s.J. A. Spende ...
since 1957, for £844m (US$1.32 billion) and the acquisition was completed on 30 November 2015. Under the transaction agreement, Pearson retained the publishing rights to FT Press and licensed the trademark from Nikkei. Until August 2015 the FT group had a 50% shareholding in '' The Economist'', which was sold to the Agnelli family for £469 million. Related publications include the ''Financial Times'', FT.com, FT Search Inc., the publishing imprint FT Press and numerous joint ventures. In November 2013 it agreed to sell Mergermarket, an online intelligence reporting business, to the London private equity investor BC Partners. In addition, the FT Group has a unit called FT Specialist, which is a provider of specialist information on retail, personal and institutional finance segments. It publishes '' The Banker'', ''Money Management
Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institut ...
'' and ''Financial Adviser'' (a publication targeted at professional advisers), ''fDi Intelligence'' and ''Professional Wealth Management'' (PWM).
The Financial Times Group announced the beta launch of newssift, part of FT Search, in March 2009. Newssift.com is a next-generation search tool for business professionals that indexes millions of articles from thousands of global business news sources, not just the FT. The Financial Times Group acquired Money Media (an online news
An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical.
Going online created more opportunities for new ...
and commentary site for the industry) and Exec-Appointments (an online recruitment specialist site for the executive jobs market). The FT Group once had a 13.85% stake in Business Standard Ltd of India, the publisher of the '' Business Standard''. It sold this stake in April 2008 and has entered into an agreement with Network 18 to launch the ''Financial Times'' in India, though it is speculated that they may find it difficult to do so, as the brand 'Financial Times' in India is owned by The Times Group, the publisher of '' The Times of India'' and '' The Economic Times''. The group also publishes America's Intelligence Wire
The America's Intelligence Wire is a daily general newswire service. The news service is owned and published by Financial Times, Ltd, which also operates companion newswire Europe Intelligence Wire.
See also
* Business and Company Resource Cente ...
, a daily general newswire service.
The ''Financial Times Financial Publishing division (formerly FT Business) provides print and online content for retail, personal and institutional finance audiences. Examples of publications and services include: ''Investors Chronicle
The ''Investors Chronicle'' is a weekly magazine in the United Kingdom for private investors and is published by the '' Financial Times'' Group. The magazine publishes articles about global markets and sectors, and news on corporate actions suc ...
'', a personal finance magazine and website; "FT Money", a weekly personal finance supplement in "FT Weekend"; ''FT Wealth'', a magazine for the global high-net-worth community and FTfm, a weekly review of the global fund management industry, ''Money Management
Investment management is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institut ...
'' and ''Financial Adviser'' (a publication targeted at professional advisers). The institutional segment includes: '' The Banker'', ''This Is Africa
''This Is Africa'' is an English-language bi-monthly business publication owned by ''The Financial Times'' Ltd and edited in London. It examines African business and politics in a global context and seeks to make sense of the relationships that Afr ...
'', '' fDi'' ''Intelligence'' and ''Professional Wealth Management'' (PWM). Money-Media, a separate arm of Financial Publishing, delivers a range of digital information services for fund management professionals around the globe, including: Ignites, Ignites Europe, Ignites Asia, FundFire and BoardIQ. Financial Publishing includes publications (''Pensions Expert
''Pensions Expert'' is a specialist publication in the United Kingdom for the UK workplace pensions industry and is published by the ''Financial Times''. It was established in January 1997.
History
''Pensions Expert'' was originally launched ...
'' and ''Deutsche Pensions & Investmentnachrichten'') and events (''Investment Expert'') for the European pensions industry. The group also publishes MandateWire, a financial information company that provides sales and market intelligence for investment professionals in North America, Europe and Asia.
FT Knowledge is an associated company which offers educational products and services. FT Knowledge has offered the "Introducing the City" course (which is a series of Wednesday night lectures and seminars, as well as weekend events) during each autumn and spring since 2000. FT Predict is a prediction market contest hosted by the ''Financial Times'' that allows users to buy and sell contracts based on future financial, political and news-driven events by spending fictional Financial Times Dollars (FT$). Based on the assumptions displayed in James Surowiecki's '' The Wisdom of Crowds'', this contest allows people to use prediction markets to observe future occurrences while competing for weekly and monthly prizes.
The ''Financial Times'' also ran a business-related game called "In the Pink" (a phrase meaning "in good health", also a reference to the colour of the newspaper and to the phrase "in the red" meaning to be making a loss). Each player was put in the virtual role of Chief Executive and the goal was to have the highest profit
Profit may refer to:
Business and law
* Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market
* Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit
* Profit (real property), a nonpossessory intere ...
when the game closes. The winner of the game (the player who makes the highest profit) was to receive a real monetary prize of £10,000. The game ran from 1 May to 28 June 2006.
Indices
The ''Financial Times'' collates and publishes a number of financial market indices, which reflect the changing value of their constituent parts. The longest-running of these was the former ''Financial News Index'', started on 1 July 1935 by the ''Financial News''. The ''FT'' published a similar index; this was replaced by the ''Financial News Index''—which was then renamed the ''Financial Times (FT) Index''—on 1 January 1947. The index started as an index of industrial shares, and companies with dominant overseas interests were excluded, such as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1909 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (Iran). The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914, gaining a controlling number ...
(later BP), British-American Tobacco
British American Tobacco plc (BAT) is a British multinational company that manufactures and sells cigarettes, tobacco and other nicotine products. The company, established in 1902, is headquartered in London, England. As of 2019, it is the large ...
, Lever Brothers (later Unilever) and Shell. The oil and financial sectors were included decades later.[''The Stock Market'', John Littlewood.]
The FTSE All-Share Index, the first of the FTSE series of indices, was created in 1962, comprising the largest 594 UK companies by market capitalisation.[ The letters F-T-S-E represented that FTSE was a joint venture between the ''Financial Times'' (F-T) and the London Stock Exchange (S-E). On 13 February 1984 the FTSE 100 was introduced, representing about eighty per cent of the London Stock Exchange's value.][ In 1995 FTSE Group was made an independent company. The first of several overseas offices was opened in New York City in 1999; Paris followed in early 2000, Hong Kong, Frankfurt and San Francisco in 2001, Madrid in 2002 and Tokyo in 2003.
Other well-known FTSE indices include the FTSE 350 Index, the FTSE SmallCap Index, the FTSE AIM UK 50 Index and FTSE AIM 100 Index as well as the FTSE AIM All-Share Index for stocks, and the FTSE UK Gilt Indices for government bonds.
In 2021, the ''Financial Times'' started publishing three multi-asset indexes with Wilshire Associates covering combinations of the top five cryptocurrencies.
]
People
In July 2006, the ''FT'' announced a "New Newsroom" project to integrate the newspaper more closely with FT.com. At the same time it announced plans to cut the editorial staff from 525 to 475. In August 2006 it announced that all the required job cuts had been achieved through voluntary layoffs. A number of former ''FT'' journalists have gone on to high-profile jobs in journalism, politics and business. Robert Thomson, previously the paper's US managing editor, was the editor of '' The Times'' and is now the chief executive of News Corporation. Will Lewis, a former New York correspondent and News Editor for the ''FT'', edited the ''Daily Telegraph
Daily or The Daily may refer to:
Journalism
* Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks
* ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times''
* ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'' and the '' Wall Street Journal''. Dominic Lawson went on to become editor of the ''Sunday Telegraph
''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings.
It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...
'' until he was sacked in 2005. Andrew Adonis, a former education correspondent, became an adviser on education to the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and was given a job as an education minister and a seat in the House of Lords after the 2005 election. Ed Balls became chief economic adviser to the Treasury, working closely with Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor i ...
(or finance minister), before being elected a Member of Parliament in 2005, and became Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in July 2007. Bernard Gray, a former defence correspondent and Lex columnist, was chief executive of the publishing company CMP before becoming chief executive of TSL Education, publisher of the '' Times Educational Supplement''. David Jones, at one time the FT Night Editor, then became Head of IT. He was a key figure in the newspaper's transformation from hot metal to electronic composition and then onto full-page pagination in the 1990s. He went on to become Head of Technology for the Trinity Mirror Group.
Sir Geoffrey Owen was the editor of the ''Financial Times'' from 1981 to 1990. He joined the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics as Director of Business Policy in 1991 and was appointed Senior Fellow, Institute of Management, in 1997. He continues his work there. During his tenure at the FT he had to deal with rapid technological change and issues related to it, for example repetitive strain injury (RSI), which affected dozens of FT journalists, reporters and staff in the late 1980s.
Editors
:1889: Douglas MacRae
:1890: William Ramage Lawson
William Ramage Lawson (3 December 1840 – 15 January 1922), generally referred to as W. R. Lawson, was a British journalist, economist and author.
History
W. R. Lawson was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland, a son of James Lawson (1802–1871) and Ma ...
:1892: Sydney Murray
:1896: A. E. Murray
:1909: C. H. Palmer
:1924: D. S. T. Hunter
:1937: Archibald Chisholm
Archibald Hugh Tennent Chisholm, (August 17, 1902November 22, 1992) was a British oil executive and journalist who was editor of ''The Financial Times'' between 1937 and 1940.
Early life
Chisholm was born in 1902, his father was Hugh Chisholm, th ...
:1940: Albert George Cole
:1945: Hargreaves Parkinson
:1949: Sir Gordon Newton
:1973: Fredy Fisher
:1981: Sir Geoffrey Owen
Sir Geoffrey Owen (born 16 April 1934) is an English academic and journalist, who is the former editor of the ''Financial Times,'' and currently Head of Industrial Policy at Policy Exchange, the UK's leading Think Tank. He is also a Visiting Prof ...
:1991: Richard Lambert
:2001: Andrew Gowers
:2006: Lionel Barber
:2020: Roula Khalaf
Roula Khalaf ( ar, رولا خلف) is a British-Lebanese journalist who is the editor of the ''Financial Times'', having been its deputy editor and foreign editor. She succeeded Lionel Barber as editor on 20 January 2020.
Early life
Khalaf was ...
See also
* Business journalism
* ''Financial Times'' Business Book of the Year Award
* Financial Times Person of the Year
The British business newspaper ''Financial Times'' each year nominates a "Person of the Year" to the person the newspaper has considered has demonstrated considerable influence in a given year. There appear to have been a number of instances (197 ...
* List of newspapers in the United Kingdom
* TNW (website)
* Periodical literature
A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a Academic journal, journal ...
Notes
References
External links
*
{{authority control
Financial services companies established in 1888
1888 establishments in England
1957 mergers and acquisitions
2015 mergers and acquisitions
Business newspapers
Business newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Centre-right newspapers
Centrist newspapers
Conservative liberalism
Daily newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Economy of the United Kingdom
International newspapers
Liberal media in the United Kingdom
National newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Neoliberalism
Nikkei Inc.
Pearson plc
Podcasting companies
Publications established in 1888