Billionaire Mr Michael Bloomberg's election as mayor of New York could pose delicate conflict-of-interest questions for both him and the financial news company that bears his name.
Mr Bloomberg, who was elected on Tuesday, relinquished day-to-day control along with his title of chairman before launching his campaign in June, but remains chief executive and retains a 72 per cent stake in the company, Bloomberg LP.
Mr Bloomberg said in July that he would not return to the company even if he lost the election. But he has not said what he will do with his share or the CEO title. Company spokeswoman Mr Chris Taylor said she expects the issue to be addressed soon.
As far as the news service goes, Mr Matthew Winkler, editor in chief of Bloomberg News, said there "will have to be much greater scrutiny on our part just to make sure there is no potential for the appearance of conflict. Every word, every headline, the order of every paragraph will be scrutinised."
The news service had avoided writing long feature stories about the mayoral campaign as part of a longstanding policy of avoiding coverage of Bloomberg as an individual, said Mr Winkler, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
But now that Bloomberg has been elected mayor, that will have to change.
Mr Winkler said there are no plans to hire an ombudsman to watch over the news copy, though the idea has not been ruled out. "The challenge is: Can we demonstrate in our reporting consistently that there is no other purpose other than being faithful to the reader? I would say yes we can."
Despite these assurances, the potential for conflict of interest has raised concerns among some activist groups.
Mr Peter Eisner, managing director of the Centre for Public Integrity, raised the possibility of a Bloomberg LP customer such as Goldman Sachs asking the mayor for tax breaks as part of a deal to stay in the city.
"There's certainly a potential for problems, and the antidote is complete openness from the mayor and the company in how they handle a very perplexing situation," Mr Eisner said.
"I'm not sure that even complete divestiture would make any difference. The company still bears his name and will still be looked at for possible conflicts of interest. But then again, this is what the people of New York have voted for."
Bloomberg founded his company in 1981 after leaving Salomon Bros. and built it into a major provider of financial news and information to the investment community. It leases out 162,000 financial-information terminals throughout the world.
In addition to the financial news and information service, Bloomberg LP also owns a New York radio station, a radio syndication business, a 24-hour cable channel, five magazines and a book publishing division.
Bloomberg LP is privately held and does not report full earnings, but Mr Taylor said the company had revenue of $2.5 billion last year.
AP