FTSE

- Blurb -

A RINGSIDE SEAT ON SOME OF THE BIGGEST DEALS AND BIGGEST PERSONALITIES IN BUSINESS AND GLOBAL POLITICS. FTSE is an account of how a small start-up created by the Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange launched in the mid 1980s to provide financial information, became a world leader and one of the UK' s most trusted and famous brands. It chronicles how the FTSE 100 was born and details the ferocious dealmaking that followed over 35 years of market boom and bust. It provides a ringside seat on some of the biggest deals and biggest personalities in business and global politics. There have been behind-the-scenes rows with chief executives of some of the world' s largest companies, political in-fighting, diplomatic incidents, and even controversy over a pioneering push into responsible investing that began life as a conversation with James Bond actor Roger Moore. FTSE is a modern British brand recognised the world over, like the Royal Family, the BBC or Sir Richard Branson' s Virgin empire. They are just four letters on an electronic ticker tape, but FTSE has become a byword for money, power, influence and - crucially after numerous financial crises - trust. How this organisation, FTSE International, brought order to the financial system over several decades is a story of how capitalism globalised and a data revolution transformed the investment industry. It is a story of how a team of British innovators seized an opportunity to build a business that today leads its field and guides the fortunes of an astonishing $16 trillion of funds. It is a story that Mark Makepeace, as the founding Chief Executive of FTSE International, knows better than anybody.