BLOOMBERG THRIVES ON GLOBAL PRESENCE
Technology shifts in markets will bring greater opportunities, says chairman
RUPA DAMODARAN
KUALA LUMPUR rupabanerji@mediaprima.com.my
IT weathered the financial crisis, chalking up a trail of record revenue, and now Bloomberg LP believes the next three years will bring more opportunities.
Chairman Peter T. Grauer attributed its success to the nature of the company’s global footprint, which enabled it to take advantage of growth opportunities all over the world.
“Our global footprint of people who deal in capital markets, basically the information that we have, propels our growth and enables us to do things at offices, producing 5,000 stories a day,” he said in an interview with NST Business.
This year, it has projected 70 per cent of the growth potential to come from Asia, and that means Japan, China and Asean.
Asia makes up about 19 per cent of the total market in contrast with its 44 per cent stronghold in the Americas.
In the case of Malaysia, the business has been compounding over the past five years at a 3.5 to four per cent rate annually.
The company has proudly held its revenue track record since it began operations 35 years ago, even though there was a dip in the core terminal business in 2009.
“We continue to believe it is the nature of our global footprint that has enabled us to take advantage of growth opportunities all over the world.”
Most of its revenue is derived from financial products.
Grauer spoke proudly about the 325,000 subscribers across the world today.
Japan may be its largest market in Asia because of its global financial centre status but opportunities have broadened in most Asean countries where the capital markets are in the early stages of development.
What drives the business is not the front-office desktop financial information product, but the ancillary and enterprise and executive products as well as trading solutions.
“Customers now want an integrated technology solution to their financial information needs, which the company is wellpositioned to take advantage of.”
That means the products in its portfolio will remain unchanged.
“We don’t tend to be acquisitive as we tend to drive growth organically, because we can control the outcomes better and we can manage them.
“One of the things that makes us what we are is the fact that the atmosphere our colleagues work in every day is one of constructive paranoia — we are the market leader in every business we are in,” he said.
Grauer sits in the three-man management committee with main shareholders Michael Bloomberg and Tom Secunda, and it considers the challenges in moving the organisation forward to capture growth.
And one of the worries is who is going to disrupt them.
“For example, which financial technology or start-up is likely to knock us off, how to retain the exceptional people we have and what is the workforce of tomorrow going to look like as we further digitise our business and as people rely independently on applications of technology.”
Last year, Bloomberg acquired Barclays Risk Analytics and Index Solutions Ltd, a leading provider of benchmark and strategy indices, portfolio analytics, risk and attribution models, and portfolio construction tools for US$820 million (RM3.6 billion).
“It is up to us to make sure that we have positioned our resources to take advantage of those opportunities,” said Grauer, declining to comment on any target set for its terminal business.
As the business world takes note of the rapid changes in technology over the past decade, Grauer said Bloomberg was an early adopter of the Internet, social media and social community with its messaging system and chat rooms.
“We have been a disruptor from the start,” he said.
Its news division has also gone digital and the successful count of 5,000 stories daily using shared intelligence across various cities is also due to the way the company is organised.
“There remains greater opportunities with the continuing technology shifts in the markets and the electronification of markets,” added Grauer.
Customers now want an integrated technology solution to their financial information needs which the company is well-positioned to take advantage of.
PETER T. GRAUER Bloomberg LP chairman