Lori Hoffman/Bloomberg
Bloomberg LP founder Mike Bloomberg.
- Bloomberg LP has surpassed $10 billion in annual revenue for the first time.
- Hitting this milestone means some employees will receive bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars that are paid out in March.
- Bloomberg, known for its terminals that are ubiquitous on Wall Street trading floors, has lately shifted its revenue mix to new sources like selling data.
Bloomberg LP, the financial data and information company, brought in record revenue in 2018, surpassing $10 billion for the first time, according to insiders who were informed by senior management.
While the milestone would be something in itself, it also means some employees are in line to receive an additional bonus thanks to an incentive plan set up years ago to entice staff to push for revenue gains.
Bloomberg employees who joined the company before 2013 will receive an added bonus paid out in March, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Staff who worked at the media company when it was first announced in 2008 are eligible for more than those who joined in the intervening years.
Nearly half of the almost 20,000 employees are eligible for some payout and were told last week, the person said.
The payout could have been higher if Bloomberg had hit the $10 billion mark sooner. The NYPost reported in December 2010 that the firm told employees that the bonus, known as 10B, would equal 70% of their average pay (calculated over some time period) if it reached $10 billion in revenue by June 2014. Later than that, the bonus as a percentage of annual revenue gradually declined. At the time, 12-month trailing revenue was less than $7 billion.
But by 2012, expectations for reaching $10 billion in revenue had run into the reality of the financial crisis and job cuts across Wall Street, which limited pricey terminals installs that run north of $24,000 a year. In a memo late that year, according to Politico, Bloomberg told employees it would pay them an interim bonus in 2014, with the remainder paid out whenever the firm reached $10 billion in revenue.
Bloomberg, known for its terminals that are ubiquitous on Wall Street trading floors, finally reached the milestone by diversifying away from those machines, Jennifer Milton, an analyst at Burton-Taylor International Consulting, wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier this week.
Growth in Bloomberg's non-terminal revenue such as data and research tools outpaced the terminal revenue in 2018, and now accounts for 23% of total revenue, she wrote. The post also mentioned the $10 billion revenue figured, saying it was an estimate.
A Bloomberg spokesman declined to comment.