Michael Bloomberg's Future

Michael Bloomberg Exits City Hall on his last day as mayor.

When Michael Bloomberg left office after three terms as New York City’s mayor, he said he would devote his time to his philanthropy.

Instead, only a few months later, Bloomberg returned to the run the financial media company he co-founded in 1981; he owns about 90 percent of it.

Since then, there have been a lot of changes: new editors have been hired, while others have left; there have been some layoffs as the company examines how best to organize its news operations; and there’s been a refocus on the Bloomberg terminals which provide financial firms with market data and are responsible for the majority of the Bloomberg LP’s revenues.

“He’s definitely been more hands on,” Shannon Bond, a media reporter at the Financial Times told WNYC’s Soterios Johnson.

While Bloomberg still leads the market for providing financial data, the company is now facing competition for its services at the same time that Wall Street firms are reducing their staffs and looking for ways to cut costs. Bloomberg terminals can cost as much as $24,000 a year.

And while the former mayor is focusing on his namesake company, there have also been repeated calls for him to run for president.