Outlet profile

FactSet

Non-ideological financial data provider (not a news outlet)

Owned byPublicly traded company (NYSE: FDS, S&P 500 member), owned by its shareholders. Large institutional holders include Vanguard and BlackRock. It has been public since its June 1996 IPO. I found nothing indicating a change of ownership in 2026.

FundingSubscription and licensing fees from investment banks, asset managers, hedge funds and other financial firms for its data, analytics and software. It is not funded by advertising, a billionaire owner, donations or a state.

On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

FactSet was founded in September 1978 by Howard Wille and Charles Snyder to deliver financial data to investment professionals. It went public on the New York Stock Exchange on June 28, 1996, under the ticker FDS, and later joined the S&P 500. Over the decades it grew from a data terminal service into a provider of integrated data, analytics and workflow software, partly through acquisitions. Ownership is dispersed among institutional shareholders such as Vanguard and BlackRock. Media outlets such as Reuters, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal often cite its aggregated analyst estimates (for example, S&P 500 earnings growth forecasts), and it publishes a regular Earnings Insight report. It does not do original political reporting or commentary, so it has no ideological orientation or stance on the administration. Its main exposure to policy comes from market effects, such as tariffs or interest rates, which show up in its data. Readers should treat it as a neutral data vendor whose figures reflect analyst consensus and company filings. That consensus can lag fast-changing events.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-11-01; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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