Bridge Information Systems was a financial news and data provider that was acquired by Reuters Group in September 2001. [1]
The origins of Bridge date to 1974, when the original company was founded in St. Louis by investment analysts through acquisition of a computer firm from Dean Witter & Co. [2] Principal founder Charles A. Lebens thought that the development of new time-sensitive investments and financial industry deregulation would create a market for up-to-date financial information. [2] In March 1995, Bridge was acquired by private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. [2] [3] "Global Financial Information Corp." was the entity formed from Bridge and several other companies combined by Welsh, but the entire concern named "Bridge Information Systems" in September 1996. [4] It also moved its headquarters to New York. [5]
Bridge's acquisition of ten companies starting in 1996 under new CEO Tom Wendel, starting with Knight Ridder Financial News for $275 million, [6] created significant debt burdens for the company. [7] Bridge also bought the Telerate unit of Dow Jones & Company in 1998 in return for $150 million of preferred stock. [8] [9]
As of May 2000 the company had 5,000 employees (a ten-fold growth from five years prior); half were located in the United States, and six hundred reporters were spread over 100 countries. One thousand employees were located at the company's headquarters in New York, and 800 were in St. Louis (its original headquarters). [2]
Unable to meet its ongoing debt obligations, Bridge filed for bankruptcy in February 2001. [8] The purchase of the company by Reuters was finalized by the end of September.
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the firm's clients include corporations, governments, institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley ranked No. 61 in the 2023 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue and in the same year ranked #30 in Forbes Global 2000.
The Carlyle Group Inc. is an American multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $426 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and private credit. It is one of the largest mega-funds in the world. In 2015, Carlyle was the world's largest private equity firm by capital raised over the previous five years, according to the PEI 300 index. In the 2024 ranking however, it had slipped to sixth place.
KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strategic partners, hedge funds. As of December 31, 2023, the firm had completed more than 730 private equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $710 billion of total enterprise value. As of December 31, 2023, assets under management (AUM) and fee paying assets under management (FPAUM) were $553 billion and $446 billion, respectively.
Lehman Brothers Inc. was an American global financial services firm founded in 1850. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, with about 25,000 employees worldwide. It was doing business in investment banking, equity, fixed-income and derivatives sales and trading, research, investment management, private equity, and private banking. Lehman was operational for 158 years from its founding in 1850 until 2008.
GGP Inc. was an American commercial real estate company and the second-largest shopping mall operator in the United States. It was founded by brothers Martin, Matthew and Maurice Bucksbaum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1954, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, from 2000. It was subject to the largest real estate bankruptcy in American history at the time of its filing in 2009.
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CIT Group (CIT), a subsidiary of First Citizens BancShares, is an American financial services company. It provides financing, including factoring, cash management, treasury management, mortgage loans, Small Business Administration loans, leasing, and advisory services principally to individuals, middle-market companies and small businesses, primarily in North America. Under the reporting mark CEFX, it leases locomotives and railroad cars to rail transport and shipping companies in North America. It also operates a direct bank. In January 2022, CIT was acquired by First Citizens BancShares.
Stifel Financial Corp. is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company created under the Stifel name in July 1983 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange on November 24, 1986. Its predecessor company was founded in 1890 as the Altheimer and Rawlings Investment Company and is headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.
Deltacom, known as ITC^Deltacom until 2006, was a regional competitive local exchange carrier operating in the southern United States, primarily in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Deltacom provided local telephone service and long distance calling, Internet service and wide area network connectivity via Frame Relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode, or dedicated point-to-point telecommunication circuits. Deltacom also provided directory assistance to its own customers and sold the service to other carriers.
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Telerate was a US company providing financial data to market participants, specialising in commercial paper and bond prices. It was a pioneer in the electronic distribution of real-time market information in the 1970s. With its main innovation being to extend the technology that was used to obtain live stock prices, via Telequote, Quotron or Stockmaster to other sectors of the financial industry, such as corporate debt, currencies, interest rates and commodities.
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SunEdison, Inc. is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high-purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, the company was sold by Monsanto in 1989.
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Concentra Inc., is a national health care establishment centered around occupational health. It was founded in 1979 in Amarillo, Texas, and the headquarters of the corporation is in Addison, Texas. It runs 547 occupational health centres and 151 onsite health clinics at employer worksites across over 40 states. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Concentra treats one out of every seven occupational injuries in the United States. It is currently a publicly traded company with over 80% of the shares owned by Select Medical.
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