Emily White

Guest: Leslie Picker

Employer: Bloomberg
Biography:
Leslie Picker graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
in 2009, where she received her bachelors degree in Political Science.
She then went on to continue her education and Columbia University in
2010, where she graduated from the school of journalism. She finished
up her education by attending New York University were she received a
Master of Business Administration from the Stern School of Business.
She started out her career in journalism by working as a booker at Fox
Business Network for News Corporation. She left the News Corporation
after nine months and was employed by Bloomberg Television where
she was a segment producer. She worked at this position for
Bloomberg for about two years and then changed her position of work
at Bloomberg. She is currently a reporter for Bloomberg news in New
York City. Picker covers mainly equity capital markets, which refers to
IPOS.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/leslie-picker/8/5a8/66b
Mission Statement and Demographic:
According to Bloomberg.com, Bloombergs mission statement says that
Bloomberg News strives to be the most influential source of reporting
on economies, markets, companies, industries, and governments 24
hours a day, 365 days a year with complete context perspective and
precision. We are dedicated to reporting the truth, without concern for
any interests except the public interest and the information needs of
our readers and subscribers. We are factual, fair and unbiased
because our readers must have total confidence in us. This being
said, Bloomberg is responsible for reporting news that is factual and
unbiased. They have gained a reputation of being a reliable and
notable source throughout the world. Bloomberg strives to be the first
to report the news but only news that is the truth. Even though at
times certain pieces of news conflicts with some of their clients it is still
their job as a news broadcasting company to report the news.
http://www.bloomberg.com/now/bloomberg-news-mission-statement/
Organization Background and History:
Bloomberg started after current Mayor of New York City, Michael
Bloomberg was fired from a firm on Wall Street and decided to start
his own company because he claims no one would hire him. He came
up with the idea because as a beginner on the trading floor he was
responsible for collecting a lot of data everyday from the Wall Street
Journal. Bloomberg was responsible for writing this data down and

collecting it to keep for references for future trade. He then started to

read about computers where he realized that all of this data that he
was writing down could be stored and then be retrieved at a click of a
button. Bloomberg went to other people at the company he worked
for at the time and displayed his ideas. People agreed that it was a
solid idea but they wouldnt allow him to take away any time from his
day job to work on this project. Instead, him and a couple of other
colleagues worked at night to try to come up with this computer
software. Once he was fired, he decided to take this idea and make it
a company for himself. The market exemplified that there was a
demand for data to be retrieved at high speed. PC and the Internet
efficiently allowed Bloomberg to take off and allowed his company to
really take off. With Bloomberg becoming such a key development in
the investing world, him and his company allowed trade to maximize
efficiency. Clients have the capabilities of using their dashboards to
use trading tools, analytics, commodities pricing, and real time
market conditions to accurately make day to day decisions in the
capital market. Bloomberg holds many powerful large companies as
subscribers and would not be able to complete their daily tasks
without it.
Sources:
http://www.famousceos.com/profile-michael-bloomberg-bloombergfinancial-media-company.php
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/28/founder-stories-how-michaelbloomberg-got-his-start-i-brought-you-a-cup-of-coffee/
Current Issues and Current Health and Recent News:
For Bloomberg, its serious, but not terminal by Jamie Dunkley
February 11th, 2014.
After Bloomberg had a snooping scandal on their record,
Thomson Reuters, Bloombergs main compete, needed to step
up their game. Both have two of the largest financial service
providers on the market. The reason at which Thomson Reuters
is such a large provider is because the two companies Thomson
and Reuter joined together in 2008, which made them the largest
provider. They compete with Bloomberg by launching their own
trading product named Eikon, which launched in 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/forbloomberg-its-serious-but-not-terminal-9120350.html
Bloombergs Textbook Response to The Snooping Scandal May 15th,
2013
It is true that Bloomberg did have a snooping scandal.
However, their CEO took full responsibility of the situation and

stepped up and used the crisis to demonstrate how strong

Bloomberg was. They had several meetings to reinstate
Bloombergs mission statement and show how and why they
report. They didnt let this defeat them. Bloomberg has many
large, important subscribers so they needed to act efficiently and
quickly.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aaronkwittken/2013/05/15/bloombergstextbook-response-to-the-snooping-scandal/
Impact is Our Bottom Line
Bloombergs philanthropy and engagement program harnesses
the unique expertise and talent of its employees to strengthen
communities and improve quality of life world wide. With Mayor
Bloomberg being so involved in the community he has also made
it his companys goal to serve the community as well. They
believe that if they support the community that this is the only
tangible way we can build a better society.
Recent Work
Mega IPOs Seen Fading in 2015 After Billion-Dollar Deals January 5th,
2015
In 2014 we had the most IPOS with more billion-dollar sales than
ever seen before the dot-com bubble. In 2015, experts say that
it will most likely not be able to surpass these numbers. Alibaba
Group Holding Ltd. To U.S lender Citizens Financial Group predicts
that they will be able to generate proceeds higher than one
billion dollars in 2014. The companies in 2015 that are predicted
to possibly reach this threshold are Univision Communications
Inc. and First Data Corp.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-05/mega-ipos-seenfading-in-2015-after-billion-dollar-deals.html
Shake Shack Files for IPO that Could Value Burger Chain at $1 Billion
December 29th, 2014
Shake Shack is extremely profitable. If the company were to go
public they would generate one billion dollars in IPOs. It is
surprising that this company has a chance at profitability
because these emerging companies in tech generally arent as
profitable. 87% of Shake Shack is tied up in one supplier. This
can affect their business in Moscow, which will create some risks.
Shake Shack has sixty-three restaurants through out the world.
Most are located in America. Even though the IPO generates one
billion dollars in proceeds most of these proceeds will be coming

from the long term. The other risk that Shake Shack has is that it
has never been in a rural setting. Most locations are urban and
experts dont know how this company will adjust to a rural
location.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-29/shake-shack-filesfor-initial-offering-of-meyer-s-burger-chain.html

Fitbit Said Plan 2015 Initial Offering Led by Morgan Stanley by Serena
Saitto and Leslie Picker December 19th, 2014
The Fitbit is a fitness-tracking wristband used during everyday
lives. Currently this company is working with banks to move
their company from private to public. If the company moves
from private to public with Morgan Stanley it said that their IPO
could raise about one hundred and fifty dollars in revenue.
However, there are risks because there are so many different fit
wearable technologies in the market. So why would this one
device raise so much revenue? It is said that Fitbit works hard on
trying to always modify their wristband to make it the most
technology advanced on the market.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-19/fitbit-said-to-plan2015-initial-offering-led-by-morgan-stanley.html
10 Questions
1. How does your reports effect the Bloomberg desktop?
2. What innovations do you see with Bloomberg the Eikon does
not have?
3. How did the snooping scandal affect your role at
Bloomberg?
4. Do you think the snooping scandal caused Bloomberg to
lose some credibility?
5. How do you come up with your knowledge regarding IPOs?
6. How do you take criticism to reports you make?
7. Why did you choose to move from TV to reporting?
8. You are reporting about financial interest do you ever feel
inferior because you are a woman?
9. How did you develop an interest for financial media?
10.
How do you make yourself stand out as a reporter against
companies like Thomson Reuters?