British newspaper
The Financial Times (FT) is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikkei, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015, Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for £844 million (US$1.32 billion) after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions. In 2023, it was reported to have 1.3 million subscribers of which 1.2 million were digital. The newspaper has a prominent focus on financial journalism and economic analysis rather than generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. It sponsors an annual book award and publishes a "Person of the Year" feature.
The paper was founded in January 1888 as the London Financial Guide before rebranding a month later as the "Financial Times". It was first circulated around metropolitan London by James Sheridan, who, along with his brother and Horatio Bottomley, sought to report on city business opposite the "Financial News". The succeeding half-century of competition between the two papers eventually culminated in a 1945 merger, led by Brendan Bracken, which established it as one of the largest business newspapers in the world. 
Globalisation from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries facilitated editorial expansion for the "FT", with the paper adding opinion columns, special reports, political cartoons, readers' letters, book reviews, technology articles and global politics features. The paper is often characterised by its light-pink (salmon) newsprint. It is supplemented by its lifestyle magazine ("FT Magazine)", weekend edition ("FT Weekend") and some industry publications.
The editorial stance of the "Financial Times" centres on economic liberalism, particularly advocacy of free trade and free markets. Since its founding, it has supported liberal democracy, favouring classically liberal politics and policies from international governments; its newsroom is independent from its editorial board, and it is considered a newspaper of record. Due to its history of economic commentary, the "FT" publishes a variety of financial indices, primarily the FTSE All-Share Index. Since the late 20th century, its typical depth of coverage has linked the paper with a white-collar, educated, and financially literate readership. Because of this tendency, the "FT" has traditionally been regarded as a centrist to centre-right liberal, neo-liberal, and conservative-liberal newspaper. The "Financial Times" is headquartered in Bracken House at 1 Friday Street, near the city's financial centre, where it maintains its publishing house, corporate centre, and main editorial office.
History.
The "FT" was launched as the "London Financial Guide" on 10 January 1888, renaming itself the "Financial Times" on 13 February the same year. Describing itself as the friend of "The Honest Financier, the Bona Fide Investor, the Respectable Broker, the Genuine Director, and the Legitimate Speculator", it was a four-page journal. The readership was the financial community of the City of London, its only rival being the more daring and slightly older (founded in 1884) "Financial News". On 2 January 1893 the "FT" began printing on light pink paper to distinguish it from the similarly named "Financial News": at the time, it was also cheaper to print on unbleached paper (several other more general newspapers, such as "The Sporting Times", had the same policy), but nowadays it is more expensive as the paper has to be dyed specially.
The Berry brothers, Lord Camrose and Gomer Berry (later Lord Kemsley), purchased the "Financial Times" in 1919.
In 1945, Brendan Bracken purchased the "Financial Times" from Lord Camrose, and, following 57 years of rivalry, merged it with the "Financial News" to form a single six-page newspaper. The "Financial Times" had a higher circulation, while the "Financial News" provided much of the editorial talent. The "Lex" column was also introduced from "Financial News".
Gordon Newton, a Cambridge graduate, took over as editor in 1949, and immediately introduced a policy (then most unusual in Fleet Street) of direct recruitment of new university graduates, mainly from Oxbridge, as its trainee journalists. Many of them proceeded to have distinguished careers elsewhere in journalism and British public life and became the mainstay of the paper's own editorial strengths until the 1990s. The first such 'direct recruit' was future leading British economist Andrew Shonfield; the second was (later Sir) William Rees-Mogg who went on, via "The Sunday Times", to edit "The Times" in 1967 following its acquisition by Roy Thomson. Other FT Oxbridge recruits included the future Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson. The "FT"'s distinctive recruitment policy for Fleet Street journalists was never popular with the National Union of Journalists and ceased in 1966 following the recruitment of Richard Lambert from Oxford, himself a future Editor of the "FT". Meanwhile, Pearson had bought the paper in 1957. 
Over the years, the paper grew in size, readership and breadth of coverage. It established correspondents in cities around the world, reflecting a renewed impetus in the world economy towards globalisation. As cross-border trade and capital flows increased during the 1970s, the "FT" began international expansion, facilitated by developments in technology and the growing acceptance of English as the international language of business. On 1 January 1979 the first "FT" (Continental Europe edition) was printed outside the UK, in Frankfurt; printing in the U.S. began in July 1985. Since then, with increased international coverage, the "FT" has become a global newspaper, printed in 22 locations with five international editions to serve the UK, continental Europe, the U.S., Asia and the Middle East.
The European edition is distributed throughout continental Europe and Africa. It is printed Monday to Saturday at five centres across Europe, reporting on matters concerning the European Union, the euro and European corporate affairs. In 1994 "FT" launched a luxury lifestyle magazine, "How To Spend It". In 2009 it launched a standalone website for the magazine. On 13 May 1995 the "Financial Times" group made its first foray into the online world with the launch of FT.com. This provided a summary of news from around the globe, which was supplemented in February 1996 with stock price coverage. The second-generation site was launched in spring 1996. The site was funded by advertising and contributed to the online advertising market in the UK in the late 1990s. Between 1997 and 2000, the site underwent several revamps and changes of strategy, as the FT Group and Pearson reacted to the changes online. "FT" introduced subscription services in 2002. "FT.com" is one of the few UK news sites successfully funded by individual subscription.
In 1997, the "FT" launched a U.S. edition, printed in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando and Washington, D.C., although the newspaper was first printed outside New York City in 1985. In September 1998 the "FT" became the first UK-based newspaper to sell more copies internationally than within the UK. In 2000 the "Financial Times" started publishing a German-language edition, "Financial Times Deutschland", with a news and editorial team based in Hamburg. Its initial circulation in 2003 was 90,000. It was originally a joint venture with a German publishing firm, Gruner + Jahr. In January 2008 the "FT" sold its 50% stake to its German partner. "FT Deutschland" never made a profit and is said to have accumulated losses of €250 million over 12 years. It closed on 7 December 2012. The "Financial Times" launched a new weekly supplement for the fund management industry on 4 February 2002. "FT fund management" (FTfm) was and still is distributed with the paper every Monday. FTfm is the world's largest-circulation fund management title. Since 2005 the "FT" has sponsored the annual "Financial Times" Business Book of the Year Award.
On 23 April 2007, the "FT" unveiled a "refreshed" version of the newspaper and introduced a new slogan, "We Live in Financial Times". In 2007 the "FT" pioneered a metered paywall, which let visitors to its website read a limited number of free articles during any one month before asking them to pay. Four years later the "FT" launched its HTML5 mobile internet app. Smartphones and tablets now drive 12% of subscriptions and 19% of traffic to FT.com. In 2012, the number of digital subscribers surpassed the circulation of the newspaper for the first time and the "FT" drew almost half of its revenue from subscriptions rather than advertising.
The "FT" has been available on Bloomberg Terminal since 2010 and on the Wisers platform since 2013. From 2015, instead of the metered paywall on the website, visitors were given unlimited free access for one month, after which they needed to subscribe. Pearson sold the Financial Times Group to Nikkei, Inc. for £844 million (US$1.32 billion) in July 2015. 
In 2016, the "Financial Times" acquired a controlling stake in Alpha Grid, a London-based media company specialising in the development and production of quality branded content across a range of channels, including broadcast, video, digital, social and events. In 2018, the "Financial Times" acquired a controlling stake in Longitude, a specialist provider of thought leadership and research services to a multinational corporate and institutional client base. This investment built on the "Financial Times"' recent growth in several business areas, including branded content via the acquisition of Alpha Grid, and conferences and events through "Financial Times Live" and extends the "FT"'s traditional commercial offering into a wider set of integrated services. In 2020, reporter Mark Di Stefano resigned from the "Financial Times" after hacking into Zoom calls at other media organisations including "The Independent" and the "Evening Standard".
In 2020, the retraction of an opinion piece by a reporter for the "Financial Times" generated a controversy about the editorial independence of the paper from outside political pressure. The controversy followed the withdrawal by the newspaper's editor of an opinion piece by "FT"'s Brussels correspondent Mehreen Khan that was critical of French President Emmanuel Macron's policy towards Muslim minorities in France. The piece was withdrawn from the "FT" website on the same day as its publication. President Macron subsequently published a letter in the "FT" directly responding to the arguments of the original opinion piece, even if the original opinion piece was no longer available on the website of the newspaper. The editor of the "FT", Roula Khalaf, who took the decision to withdraw the initial article, acknowledged having been contacted by the Élysée Palace regarding the article, and defended her decision on the basis purely of several factual errors in the original piece by Mehreen Khan.
Wirecard exposé.
In January 2019, the "FT" began a series of investigative articles detailing fraud suspicions at German payments group Wirecard. When the Wirecard share price plunged, German news media speculated that market manipulation was behind this attack on a German corporate, focusing on the lead author of the "FT" series, Dan McCrum. The Public prosecutor's office in Munich subsequently launched an investigation. After the formal complaint of an investor, Wirecard and the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the responsible state's attorney announced investigations into several "FT" journalists.
On 22 June 2020 and after 18 months of investigations and an external audit, Wirecard announced that €1.9 billion worth of cash reported in its accounts "may not exist". The company subsequently filed for insolvency. BaFin itself became subject of a European Securities and Markets Authority investigation for its response to the scandal.
Fossil fuel advertising.
An investigation by the Intercept, the Nation, and DeSmog found that "FT" is one of the leading media outlets that publishes advertising for the fossil fuel industry. Journalists who cover climate change for "FT" are concerned that conflicts of interest with the companies and industries that caused climate change and obstructed action will reduce the credibility of their reporting on climate change and cause readers to downplay the climate crisis.
Audience.
According to the Global Capital Markets Survey, which measures readership habits among most senior financial decision makers in the world's largest financial institutions, the "Financial Times" is considered the most important business read, reaching 36% of the sample population, 11% more than "The Wall Street Journal" ("WSJ"), its main rival. "The Economist", which was once 50% owned by "FT", reaches 32%. "FT"'s "The Banker" also proved vital reading, reaching 24%. In addition, in 2010 the "FT" was regarded as the most credible publication in reporting financial and economic issues among the Worldwide Professional Investment Community audience. "The Economist" was rated the third-most-credible title by most influential professional investors, while the "WSJ" was second.
In 2022, the "FT"