TheFinancial Times (FT) is a British daily newspaper printed inbroadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economiccurrent affairs. Based inLondon, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company,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.[6][7] In 2023, it was reported to have 1.3 million subscribers of which 1.2 million were digital.[8] The newspaper has a prominent focus onfinancial journalism and economic analysis rather thangeneralist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. It sponsors anannual book award and publishes a "Person of the Year" feature.
The paper was founded in January 1888 as theLondon Financial Guide before rebranding a month later as theFinancial Times. It was first circulated around metropolitan London byJames Sheridan, who, along with his brother andHoratio Bottomley, sought to report on city business opposite theFinancial News. The succeeding half-century of competition between the two papers eventually culminated in a1945 merger, led byBrendan Bracken, which established it asone of the largest business newspapers in the world.
Globalisation from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries facilitated editorial expansion for theFT, 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 front page of theFinancial Times on 13 February 1888
TheFT was launched as theLondon Financial Guide on 10 January 1888, renaming itself theFinancial 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 theCity of London, its only rival being the more daring and slightly older (founded in 1884)Financial News. On 2 January 1893 theFT began printing on light pink paper to distinguish it from the similarly namedFinancial News: at the time, it was also cheaper to print on unbleached paper (several other more general newspapers, such asThe Sporting Times, had the same policy), but nowadays it is more expensive as the paper has to be dyed specially.[15]
The Berry brothers,Lord Camrose andGomer Berry (later Lord Kemsley), purchased theFinancial Times in 1919.[16]
In 1945,Brendan Bracken purchased theFinancial Times from Lord Camrose,[16] and, following 57 years of rivalry, merged it with theFinancial News to form a single six-page newspaper. TheFinancial Times had a higher circulation, while theFinancial News provided much of the editorial talent. TheLex column was also introduced fromFinancial News.[17]
Gordon Newton, a Cambridge graduate, took over as editor in 1949, and immediately introduced a policy (then most unusual inFleet Street) 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 future leading British economist Andrew Shonfield; the second was (later Sir) William Rees-Mogg who went on, viaThe Sunday Times, to editThe Times in 1967 following its acquisition by Roy Thomson. Other FT Oxbridge recruits included the futureChancellor of the ExchequerNigel Lawson. TheFT's distinctive recruitment policy for Fleet Street journalists was never popular with theNational Union of Journalists and ceased in 1966 following the recruitment of Richard Lambert from Oxford, himself a future Editor of theFT. Meanwhile, Pearson had bought the paper in 1957.[18]
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 theworld economy towardsglobalisation. As cross-border trade and capital flows increased during the 1970s, theFT 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 firstFT (Continental Europe edition) was printed outside the UK, in Frankfurt; printing in the U.S. began in July 1985.[19] Since then, with increased international coverage, theFT 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.[20]
The European edition is distributed throughout continental Europe and Africa. It is printed Monday to Saturday at five centres across Europe, reporting on matters concerning the European Union, theeuro and European corporate affairs.[21] In 1994FT launched a luxury lifestyle magazine,How To Spend It. In 2009 it launched a standalone website for the magazine.[22] On 13 May 1995 theFinancial 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 the changes online.FT introduced subscription services in 2002.[23]FT.com is one of the few UK news sites successfully funded by individual subscription.
In 1997, theFT 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 theFT became the first UK-based newspaper to sell more copies internationally than within the UK. In 2000 theFinancial 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 theFT sold its 50% stake to its German partner.[24]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.[25][26] TheFinancial 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.[27] Since 2005 theFT has sponsored the annualFinancial Times Business Book of the Year Award.[28]
On 23 April 2007, theFT unveiled a "refreshed" version of the newspaper and introduced a new slogan, "We Live in Financial Times".[29] In 2007 theFT pioneered ametered paywall, which let visitors to its website read a limited number of free articles during any one month before asking them to pay.[30] Four years later theFT launched itsHTML5 mobile internet app. Smartphones and tablets now drive 12% of subscriptions and 19% of traffic to FT.com.[31] In 2012, the number of digital subscribers surpassed the circulation of the newspaper for the first time and theFT drew almost half of its revenue from subscriptions rather than advertising.[32][33]
TheFT has been available onBloomberg Terminal since 2010[34] and on theWisers platform since 2013.[35] 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.[7][36] Pearson sold the Financial Times Group toNikkei, Inc. for£844 million (US$1.32 billion) in July 2015.[37][38][39]
In 2016, theFinancial 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.[40] In 2018, theFinancial Times acquired a controlling stake inLongitude, a specialist provider ofthought leadership and research services to a multinational corporate and institutional client base.[41] This investment built on theFinancial Times' recent growth in several business areas, including branded content via the acquisition of Alpha Grid, and conferences and events throughFinancial Times Live and extends theFT's traditional commercial offering into a wider set of integrated services. In 2020, reporter Mark Di Stefano resigned from theFinancial Times after hacking intoZoom calls at other media organisations includingThe Independent and theEvening Standard.[citation needed]
In 2020, the retraction of an opinion piece by a reporter for theFinancial 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 byFT's Brussels correspondent Mehreen Khan that was critical of French PresidentEmmanuel Macron's policy towards Muslim minorities in France. The piece was withdrawn from theFT website on the same day as its publication.[42] President Macron subsequently published a letter in theFT directly responding to the arguments of the original opinion piece, even if the original opinion piece was no longer available on the website of the newspaper.[43] The editor of theFT,Roula Khalaf, who took the decision to withdraw the initial article, acknowledged having been contacted by theÉlysée Palace regarding the article, and defended her decision on the basis purely of several factual errors in the original piece by Mehreen Khan.[44]
In January 2019, theFT began a series ofinvestigative articles detailing fraud suspicions at German payments groupWirecard. When the Wirecard share price plunged, German news media speculated thatmarket manipulation was behind this attack on a German corporate, focusing on the lead author of theFT series,Dan McCrum. The Public prosecutor's office inMunich subsequently launched an investigation.[45] After the formal complaint of an investor, Wirecard and the GermanFederal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the responsible state's attorney announced investigations into severalFT journalists.[46]
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 forinsolvency.[47] BaFin itself became subject of aEuropean Securities and Markets Authority investigation for its response to the scandal.[48]
According to the Global Capital Markets Survey, which measures readership habits among most senior financial decision makers in the world's largest financial institutions, theFinancial Times is considered the most important business read, reaching 36% of the sample population, 11% more thanThe Wall Street Journal (WSJ), its main rival.The Economist, which was once 50% owned byFT, reaches 32%.FT'sThe Banker also proved vital reading, reaching 24%.[50] In addition, in 2010 theFT was regarded as the most credible publication in reporting financial and economic issues among the Worldwide Professional Investment Community audience.The Economist was rated the third-most-credible title by most influential professional investors, while theWSJ was second.[51]
In 2022, theFT launched FT Edit, a low-price app aimed at attracting a younger audience.[52]
TheFT is split into two sections. The first section covers domestic and international news, editorial commentary on politics and economics fromFT journalists such asMartin Wolf,Gillian Tett andEdward 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.[53][54] About 110 of its 475 journalists are outside the United Kingdom.
TheLex column is a daily feature on the back page of the first section. It features analyses and opinions covering global economics and finance. TheFT callsLex its agenda-setting column. The column first appeared on Monday, 1 October 1945. The name may originally have stood forLex Mercatoria, a Latin expression meaning literally "merchant law". It was conceived byHargreaves Parkinson for theFinancial News in the 1930s, and moved to theFinancial Times when the two merged.
Lex boasts some distinguished alumni who have gone on to make careers in business and government—includingNigel Lawson (former ConservativeChancellor of the Exchequer),Richard Lambert (CBI director and former member of theBank of England's monetary policy committee), Martin Taylor (former chief executive ofBarclays), John Makinson (chairman and chief executive ofPenguin), John Gardiner (former chairman ofTesco),David Freud (formerUBS banker and Labour adviser, now a Conservative peer), John Kingman (former head ofUKFI and a banker atRothschild's), George Graham (RBS banker),Andrew Balls (head of European portfolio management atPIMCO) andJo Johnson (former Conservative Member of Parliamentfor Orpington).[55]
TheFT publishes a Saturday edition of the newspaper titled theFinancial Times Weekend. It consists of international economic and political news,Companies & Markets,Life & Arts,House & Home andFT Magazine.
HTSI (originallyHow to Spend It) is a weekly magazine published withFT Weekend. Founded and launched by Julia Carrick[56] with Lucia van der Post as founding editor,[57] its articles concernluxury goods such asyachts,mansions,apartments,horlogerie,haute couture andautomobiles, 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, theFT's first female journalist, a former actor.[58] To celebrate its 15th anniversary,FT launched the online version of this publication on 3 October 2009.[57]
Some media commentators were taken aback by the online launch of a website supportingconspicuous consumption during the financialausterity of thelate-2000s recession.[57] The magazine has been derided in rival publishers' blogs, as "repellent" in theTelegraph[59] and "a latter-dayAb Fab manual" inThe Guardian.[60] A 'well-thumbed' copy of the supplement was found when rebel forces broke intoColonel Gaddafi's Tripoli compound during the2011 Libyan Civil War.[61]
In September 2021, an Arabic version ofHTSI was launched byOthman Al Omeir, founder ofElaph online newspaper.[62]HTSI Arabic is published in London.[62]
The name of the magazine was changed in 2022 fromHow to Spend It toHTSI.
The modernFT is a product of a merger of two smaller newspapers in1945; since that time, the paper had backed theConservatives fairly consistently, but Labour's tacking to the centre, combined with the Conservatives' embrace of Euroscepticism, led theFT to reverse course and back Labour from1992 until2010, when theFT returned to the Conservative Party. Euroscepticism further drove a wedge between theFT and the Conservatives in2019, when the paper refused to make an endorsement, opposed to Labour'ssocialist economic policies (for wanting to "reverse, not revise, the Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s") and the Conservatives' commitment to ahard Brexit.[66][67]
In respect of theRussian invasion of Ukraine, FT commentatorMartin Wolf expressed support for Ukraine.[68] Two years before the invasion of Ukraine byRussia, the FT offered an interview to the Russian PresidentVladimir Putin.[69] The interview received praise, as it offered an unusual access to the Russian leader's thinking.[70] President Putin used the interview to state his opinions about the value of liberal democracy.[71] The Ukrainian newspaperKyiv Post accused the FT of asking President Putin softball questions, and said the interviewers failed to hold Putin to account.[72]
In the2015 general election, theFT called for the continuation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that had governed for the previous five years.[74] In the2017 general election, anFT editorial reluctantly backed ConservativeTheresa May over LabourJeremy Corbyn, while warning about her stance on immigration and the Eurosceptic elements in her party.[75] TheFT declared2019 general election a "fateful election" that "offers no good choices".[76] In the2024 general election, theFT endorsed the Labour Party again, expressing the need for a "fresh start", while cautioning "Labour's interventionist instincts and fervour for regulation".[77]
TheFT has been owned byNikkei since 2015; the Japanese holding company purchased the paper for£844m (US$1.32 billion).
On 23 July 2015,Nikkei, Inc. agreed to buy the Financial Times Group, a division ofPearson plc since 1957, for £844m (US$1.32 billion)[37][38] and the acquisition was completed on 30 November 2015.[39] Under the transaction agreement, Pearson retained the publishing rights to FT Press and licensed the trademark from Nikkei.[83] Until August 2015 the FT group had a 50% shareholding inThe Economist, which was sold to theAgnelli family for £469 million.[84] Related publications include theFinancial Times, FT.com, FT Search Inc., the publishing imprint FT Press and numerous joint ventures. In November 2013 it agreed to sellMergermarket, an online intelligence reporting business, to the London private equity investor BC Partners.[85] 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 publishesThe Banker,Money Management andFT Adviser (a publication targeted to the financial intermediary market),[86]fDi Intelligence andProfessional Wealth Management (PWM).[87] In 2023, FT Specialist acquired a majority stake in medical publisher Endpoints News.[88]
The Financial Times Group announced the beta launch of newssift,[89] 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 theFT. The Financial Times Group acquired Money Media[90] (anonline news and commentary site for the industry) and Exec-Appointments[91] (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 theBusiness Standard. It sold this stake in April 2008 and has entered into an agreement withNetwork 18 to launch theFinancial Times in India,[92][93] though it is speculated that they may find it difficult to do so, as the brand 'Financial Times' in India is owned byThe Times Group,[94] the publisher ofThe Times of India andThe Economic Times. The group also publishesAmerica's Intelligence Wire, a daily generalnewswire service.[95]
TheFinancial 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, 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 andFT Adviser. The institutional segment includes:The Banker,This Is Africa,fDiIntelligence andProfessional Wealth Management (PWM).[96] 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 andDeutsche 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.[87]
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 an editorial service on forecasted economic events hosted by theFinancial 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'sThe Wisdom of Crowds, this contest allows people to use forecasted economic events to observe future occurrences while competing for weekly and monthly prizes.
TheFinancial 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 highestprofit 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.
In 2019, theFinancial Times announced it was investing inSifted, a digital-only news site and newsletter covering Europeanstartups. TheFinancial Times' initial 25% stake was subsequently diluted to 14% due to later investments from others. This marked the start of a planned 7-year strategic relationship with Sifted.[97][98]
TheFinancial Times collates and publishes a number offinancial market indices, which reflect the changing value of their constituent parts. The longest-running of these was the formerFinancial News Index, started on 1 July 1935 by theFinancial News. TheFT published a similar index; this was replaced by theFinancial News Index — which was then renamed theFinancial 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 theAnglo-Iranian Oil Company (laterBP),British-American Tobacco,Lever Brothers (laterUnilever) andShell. The oil and financial sectors were included decades later.[99]
TheFTSE All-Share Index, the first of the FTSE series of indices, was created in 1962, comprising the largest 594 UK companies by market capitalisation.[99] The lettersF-T-S-E represented that FTSE was a joint venture between theFinancial Times (F-T) and theLondon Stock Exchange (S-E). On 13 February 1984 theFTSE 100 was introduced, representing about eighty per cent of the London Stock Exchange's value.[99]FTSE Group was made an independent company in 1995. 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.
In 2021, theFinancial Times started publishing three multi-asset indexes withWilshire Associates covering combinations of the top five cryptocurrencies.[54]
In July 2006, theFT 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 formerFT 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 ofThe Times and is now the chief executive ofNews Corporation.Will Lewis, a former New York correspondent and News Editor for theFT, editedThe Daily Telegraph andThe Wall Street Journal.Dominic Lawson went on to become editor of theSunday Telegraph until he was dismissed 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 theHouse of Lords after the 2005 election.Ed Balls became chief economic adviser to the Treasury, working closely withGordon Brown, thechancellor of the exchequer (or finance minister), before being elected a Member of Parliament in 2005, and becameSecretary 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 theTimes Educational Supplement. David Jones, at one time theFT's 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.[citation needed]
Sir Geoffrey Owen was the editor of theFinancial Times from 1981 to 1990. He joined the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at theLondon 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.[100] During his tenure at theFT he had to deal with rapid technological change and issues related to it, for example repetitive strain injury (RSI), which affected dozens ofFT journalists, reporters and staff in the late 1980s.[citation needed]
^Morgan, Kevin; Marsden, Terry; Murdoch, Jonathan (2006).Worlds of Food: Place, Power, and Provenance in the Food Chain. Oxford University Press. p. 41.ISBN978-0-19-155662-3.The neo-liberal Financial Times was outraged by the Farm Bill's 'grotesque farm subsidies' and it accused Washington of having 'surrendered to protectionism', while the heads of the WTO, World Bank, and the IMF penned a joint protest ...
^Schaeffner, Christina (2010).Political Discourse, Media and Translation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Pub.ISBN978-1-4438-1793-6.OCLC827209128.
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