If Michael Bloomberg moves forward with his plans to run for president, his financial information company will be run by an expanded management committee to run the firm in his absence, according to a memo obtained Friday by NBC News.
Bloomberg, who indicated Thursday that he is readying for a potential run but has not yet made a decision, currently serves as the chief executive of the company. After his terms as mayor of New York City, he returned to Bloomberg L.P.
"When Mike ran for City Hall, we kept the business moving forward, and when Mike became Mayor, the company continued to grow and innovate," the memo said. “If Mike steps away again, we have an expanded Management Committee well equipped to continue running the day-to-day operations of the company."
Staff members at Bloomberg L.P. received the companywide memo Friday.
Bloomberg L.P. is a $10 billion financial information company with a news unit, Bloomberg Media, that covers business and politics. Unlike other news outlets, Bloomberg Media does not report on its own company. A Bloomberg presidency would prove hard to ignore, however, and the company published a story about his potential presidential run Thursday.
In addition to serving as mayor, Bloomberg has also been involved in a variety of activist causes, most prominently campaigning against the effects of climate change and gun violence.
Bloomberg built his company from scratch to supply Wall Street firms with market data in the 1980s. The company, which was started in 1981, employs an estimated 20,000 people, according to Forbes magazine.
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When Bloomberg first began exploring a potential run earlier in the year, he told Radio Iowa that he might consider a sale of his company. “I think at my age, if selling it is possible, I would do that,” he said.
He also said at the time that it might be possible that the news arm of his company would no longer cover politics. “You could say we’re not going to cover politics at all,” he said in the interview. “Quite honestly, I don’t want the reporters I’m paying to write a bad story about me.”
A spokesperson for Bloomberg L.P. confirmed that the memo came from the company.
CORRECTION (Nov. 8, 2019, 4:27 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article and a headline misstated how Bloomberg L.P. was run when Bloomberg was serving as mayor. During that time, others led the company; it was not run by a management committee.