held a 50% shareholding via The Financial Times Limited until August 2015; at that time Pearson sold their share in the Economist. The Agnelli family's Exor paid £287 million to raise their stake from 4.7% to 43.4%, while the Economist paid £182 million for the balance of 5.04 million shares which will be distributed to current shareholders. Aside from the Agnelli family, smaller shareholders in the company include Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroder, Layton and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders.
History
The origins of The Economist Group date back to the foundation of The Economist: A Political, Commercial, Agricultural, & Free-Trade Journal by James Wilson in 1843. In 1946, the Economist Intelligence Unit began providing business intelligence to both The Economist newspaper and external clients. In the same year, the Economist bookshop was established as a 50:50 joint venture with the London School of Economics. Economist Conferences was established as a division of Economist Intelligence Unit in 1956 to offer government roundtables. In 1995, The Economist Group acquired the Journal of Commerce, a US-based provider of information for the shipping and transportation industries. In the same year the Group launched European Voice, the first pan-European Union weekly newspaper. In July 2004, The Economist Group launched an upmarket lifestyle magazine called Intelligent Life, an annual publication. This magazine was redesigned as a quarterly in September 2007, and became a bi-monthly publication in August 2011. In March 2016, the magazine was renamed 1843. Launched in 2010, the Ideas People Channel is a vertical online advertising network of around 50 sites defined by the mindset of the audience. The sites recruited for the network were identified by the readers of The Economist as their favourite online destinations for topics on business, globalisation, innovation and culture. The channel competes in the lower-cost, high-volume network advertising market, a category not previously served by The Economist online. Also recently launched is Economist Education, providing e-learning courses. In March 2012, The Economist Group acquired the London-based marketing communications agency TVC Group for an undisclosed sum. In April 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit expanded in Asia with the acquisition of Clearstate, a market intelligence firm specialising in customised strategic advisory and primary research in the healthcare and life sciences domains. In July 2015, Canback & Company, a strategy consulting firm operating in more than 70 countries was acquired. It is now known as EIU Canback.
The Economist Corporate Network is a members-only service within The Economist Group providing global and regional business intelligence briefings, presentations, and advice to its subscribers. The Corporate Network relies on the "information, insight, and interaction" provided by regional experts in its parent organization. 81% of its customers are business executives at the director or senior management levels. It has offices in Dubai, Johannesburg, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo.
