FTSE Group

The FTSE Group was created in 1995 by Pearson (former parent of the Financial Times) and the London Stock Exchange Group.

In 2005, together with Dow Jones, FTSE launched the Industry Classification Benchmark, a taxonomy used to segregate markets into sectors.

In 2010, the joint venture with Xinhua Finance was terminated, the index series was renamed into FTSE China Index Series; the Hong Kong incorporated company was renamed to "FTSE China Index Limited".

In 2011, Pearson sold its stake to LSE.

Main business

FTSE Group operates 250,000 indices calculated across 80 countries and in 2015 was the number three provider of indices worldwide by revenue. FTSE Group earns around 60 per cent of revenue from annual subscription fees and 40 per cent from licensing for index-based products.

Clients include both active and passive fund managers, consultants, asset owners, sell-side firms and financial data vendors. FTSE's products are used by market participants worldwide for investment analysis, performance measurement, asset allocation and hedging. Pension funds, asset managers, ETF providers and investment banks work with FTSE to benchmark their investment performance and use FTSE's indices to create ETFs, index tracking funds, structured products and index derivatives. FTSE also provides many exchanges around the world with their domestic indices.

Fees from the use of index information and associated services generate revenues necessary to continue operations. FTSE has offices in London, New York City, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan, San Francisco, Beijing, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Toronto.

Products

FTSE Group operates the well known FTSE 100 Index and FTSE 250 Index as well as over 200,000 other indices, including 600 real-time indices.