The Exchange Telegraph Co. Ltd. (also known as Extel) was created in March 1872 specifically to distribute financial and business information from the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

and other commercial markets direct to subscribers. The company established

ticker tape Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting stock price information over electrical telegraph, telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 to 1970. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through ...

telegraph machines in offices, gentlemen's clubs, banks etc. and provided a continuous stream of commercial information to them. Extel ticker

It introduced a parliamentary service in 1876, a general news service in 1879 and a legal service in 1891. The business was so successful that by 1906 they had opened ten other branches outside

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. The company continued to grow and improve, becoming increasingly more efficient. It added a faster financial service in 1907 and began operating a worldwide news service in 1913, with a separate sports service included in the 1930s. Over the course of its history, Extel (the name coming into common use for the company in the 1950s) grew into one of the leading news agencies, provider of financial information and associated businesses. Among the many notable achievement were 'Extel cards', the very first corporate snapshots/tear-sheets with brief data on profit and loss, employees, business activities and executive management. Extel cards, naturally in hard copy, were first produced in 1922.

Recent history

Extel was acquired by United Newspapers in 1987. In 1991, Extel set up a joint venture with

Agence France Presse Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...

to create a financial news service, AFX News. Pearson plc acquired Extel in 1993 and merged it as Financial Times Information into its

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

division. Financial Times reorganised the company into two divisions: Market Data and Research. The research division retained the Extel branding. Primark acquired the Extel brand from Pearson in 1999 and it became part of Thomson Financial in 2000. AFP's share in ''AFX News'' was sold in 2006 to Thomson Financial. Thomson Financial and Extel itself was then merged into Thomson Reuters in 2007. By this time, and essentially since 1999, the only commercial and operational part of Extel was the Extel Survey. In 2016, WeConvene, a cloud-based corporate access platform acquired Extel, and subsequently sold in 2018 to their larger competitor,

Institutional Investor An institutional investor is an entity that pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked ...

, at that time owned by Euromoney. The two survey operations combined to form Institutional Investor Research (II Research). In November 2022, Euromoney was delisted following a purchase by a private equity consortium and II Research was separated from Institutional Investor. In September 2024 II Research rebranded, resurrecting its dormant trading nam
Extel

References

* * {{Authority control News agencies based in the United Kingdom Financial services companies established in 1872 Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Thomson Reuters

Recent history

See also

References