The Economist

James Wilson was born in Hawick, Scotland, on 3 June 1805. He attended Quaker schools at Ackworth and Earl’s Colne, was apprenticed to a Hawick hat-maker and studied politics and statistics in his spare time. With his father’s help he and his brother went into business and moved to London, and by 1844 he had retired from it. His writings, notably Influences of the Corn-Laws (1839) and Fluctuations of Currency, Commerce, and Manufactures (1840), made him known and influenced Richard Cobden and the anti-Corn Law movement.⁠[1]

Wilson was elected member of Parliament for Westbury in 1847 and re-elected in 1852. He served as Secretary to the Treasury under Lord Aberdeen in 1853, represented Devonport from 1857, became Vice-President of the Board of Control under Lord Palmerston in 1859 and that year was offered the post of financial member of the newly formed Council of India. In India he introduced import duties and taxes, established a paper currency and reformed public accounting; he died in Calcutta on 11 August 1860.⁠[1]

The Economist published its first issue on 2 September 1843 under the full title “The Economist: Or, The Political, Commercial, and Agricultural, and Free Trade Journal.” Its founder, James Wilson, was self-taught in economics and wrote most of the paper himself. It advocated free trade, political economy and laissez-faire economics, broadened from financial to political news, and was the first weekly newspaper to use statistical tables to support its news stories.⁠[2]

Wilson invested most of his capital in the financial and commercial paper. It argued for repeal of the Corn Laws and at its launch had the support of Richard Cobden’s Anti-Corn Law League, as well as help from the free trader Lord Radnor, who also encouraged Wilson to stand for Parliament.⁠[1][2]

After Wilson’s death in 1860, Walter Bagehot, a banker and historian who had married Wilson’s eldest daughter, and the Bagehot family took over ownership and editorial control of the paper. Bagehot kept its emphasis on statistics and financial news and remained editor until his death in 1877.⁠[2]

The Economist Newspaper Limited (UK company number 00236383) was incorporated on 14 January 1929 as a private limited company with its registered office in London. Its registered business activities include book publishing, publishing of newspapers, publishing of consumer and business journals and periodicals, and other publishing activities; as of November 2026 its status was active.⁠[3]

On 22 January 2015 The Economist Group named Zanny Minton Beddoes, then 47, as the 17th editor of The Economist and the first woman to hold the post in its 172-year history; she took up the appointment on 2 February. She had been business affairs editor, overseeing coverage of business, finance, economics, science and technology, and earlier economics editor; she joined the paper in 1994 after two years as an economist at the International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution conceived at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, whose Articles entered into force in 1945 and which began operations on March 1, 1947; headquartered in Washington, it has 191 member countries and has been led by Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva since October 2019.Open the full entry.⁠[4][5]

She succeeded John Micklethwait, who had edited the paper for nine years, during which circulation rose from 1.1 million to 1.6 million; Micklethwait became editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, succeeding its founding editor Matthew Winkler. Rupert Pennant-Rea, the group’s chairman and a former editor, called her “a true advocate for The Economist and its values.” At the time, The Economist was half owned by Pearson’s Financial TimesFinancial TimesThe Financial Times (FT) is a London-based English-language business and financial news organization, known for its salmon-pink newspaper and its motto “Without Fear and Without Favour.” It was owned successively by the British Pearson group and Japan’s Nikkei Inc., and today digital subscriptions are its main source of revenue.Open the full entry group.⁠[4][5]

On 12 August 2015 Pearson announced that it would sell its 50% stake in The Economist Group for £469 million in cash: EXOR S.p.A. would buy 27.8% of the group’s ordinary shares for £227.5 million and all of the B special shares for £59.5 million, and The Economist Group would buy back Pearson’s remaining ordinary shares for £182 million.⁠[6]

Pearson had accounted for the stake as an associate, and in 2014 The Economist Group contributed £21 million to Pearson’s operating income. The transaction required several regulatory approvals as well as approval by a 75% majority of The Economist Group’s shareholders and by the group’s independent trustees; the announcement stated that the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers does not apply to The Economist Newspaper Limited.⁠[6]

In October 2025 the stake of about 26.7% in The Economist held by Lynn Forester de Rothschild’s family was put up for sale, in a process run in London by Lazard and aimed mainly at family offices, wealthy individuals and strategic investors.⁠[7]

In March 2026 the Canadian financial-services entrepreneur Stephen Smith and his family holding company, Smith Financial Corporation, agreed to buy the 26.9% stake for an undisclosed price; with it the sellers gave up their 20% of the voting shares, the cap for any single owner. Smith co-founded the mortgage lender First National Financial in 1988. After the deal Exor held about 43.4%, and other shareholders, including The Economist Group itself, held 29.9%.⁠[8]

The transaction completed on 23 April 2026; the sellers were Lynn Forester de Rothschild, her family and the ERANDA Rothschild Foundation. Barclays and Slaughter and May advised the buyers, and Lazard and Freshfields advised the sellers. Paul Deighton, chair of The Economist Group, welcomed Smith as a shareholder.⁠[9]

On 24 March 2026 The Economist Group brought its business-to-business lines, including EIU, Corporate Network, media, events and The Economist Pro, under the Economist Enterprise brand, folding in the former Economist Impact and Economist Intelligence brands. The group said the business served more than 2,700 organisations and had more than 400 EIU experts and over 2,000 Corporate Network members; Leon Saunders Calvert is president and managing director of Economist Enterprise.⁠[10]

As of October 2025 The Economist Group had 1.25 million subscribers, 66% of them digital-only, compared with 1.1 million in 2021, when 44% were digital-only. Its most recent annual revenue was about £369 million with a profit margin of roughly 17%; by region, North America accounted for 40% of revenue, Europe 21%, the UK 20%, Asia 14% and other regions 5%.⁠[7]

The Economist Group is a London-based media and information-services company that operates three brands, The Economist, Economist Enterprise and Economist Education, and describes its purpose as to “champion progress.”⁠[9][10]

The Economist: Official website: https://www.economist.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

Economist Enterprise: Official website: https://www.economistenterprise.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]