Interfax

• 1. Introduction

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  Interfax, written in Russian as Интерфакс, is a Russian news agency headquartered in Moscow and owned by the Interfax News Agency joint-stock company. In September 1989, during Mikhail Gorbachev's period of perestroika and glasnost, journalists from Radio Moscow launched the operation. Radio Moscow was an international broadcasting station within the Soviet Gosteleradio system, and Mikhail Komissar led the founding group. They transmitted their reports over fax machines, and that method of delivery gave the agency its name.

  What did it take for a Soviet-era fax bulletin to become a company trusted with business credit checks, media monitoring, and energy reporting worldwide?

• 2. Under Political Pressure

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  By 1990, Interfax counted 100 subscribers, a modest base that still caught the attention of conservative officials inside the Soviet government. Those officials moved to shut the operation down, but the attempt only pushed Interfax into greater visibility within major Western media outlets. Its reporting on the August 1991 Putsch, and on the collapse of the Soviet Union that followed, reinforced that growing reputation abroad.

  That international standing gave Interfax the credibility to expand its offerings well beyond general news reporting in the years that followed.

• 3. Building New Services

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  Through the 1990s, Interfax added subsidiary agencies covering financial markets, metallurgy, and oil and gas, expanding well past general news coverage. It also built information products for agriculture, business law, transport, and telecommunications. A market data terminal called the EFiR information system served stock market players.

  In 2004, the company introduced the SPARK system, built to check the background of business agents operating in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. In that same year, Interfax also launched the SCAN system for media monitoring services. In 2011, Interfax launched a London-based project called Interfax Global Energy, reporting on energy markets worldwide.

  That combination of specialized systems gave Interfax products to sell well beyond Moscow, in markets across several countries.

• 4. A Map Beyond Moscow

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  Interfax opened its first post-Soviet subsidiary in Ukraine in 1992, followed by Belarus in 1993 and Kazakhstan in 1996. Azerbaijan followed in 2002, and by that period the agency had grown to 50 local offices across regions of the Russian Federation.

  Interfax America opened in Denver, Colorado, in 1991, the company's first office outside the former USSR, meant to promote its products abroad. London-based Interfax Europe Ltd. followed in 1992, then Interfax Germany GmbH in Frankfurt in 1993, and Interfax News Service Ltd. in Hong Kong in 1998.

  With that international footprint in place, Interfax began striking partnerships with established global information companies to expand its reach further.

• 5. Building Alliances Abroad

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  In 1999, Interfax teamed up with Moody's Investors Service to launch a rating agency focused on the Russian market. That same year, Interfax and Reuters signed a cooperation agreement. Its SPARK system also became the foundation for a joint venture with Dun & Bradstreet, a business credit information provider.

  Since 2001, Interfax has worked with Business Wire, which distributes corporate regulatory disclosures and press releases. It also offers consumer credit reports through a joint venture with Experian and Sberbank of Russia.

  These alliances multiplied the hands touching Interfax's data, though the company's own direction stayed with a small circle of executives in Moscow.

• 6. Leadership In Moscow

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  Mikhail Komissar today serves as chairman of the board and chief executive of Interfax Group. Vladimir Gerasimov serves as executive director and general director of the financial and business information service. Georgy Gulia holds the title of executive director for the general information service.

  That leadership team oversees an organization whose reach now stretches far beyond the newsroom in Moscow.

• 7. Reach And Revenue

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  More than 1,000 staff work across over 70 bureaus worldwide, producing more than 3,000 stories every day. That output covers general and political news, business credit information, industry analysis, market data, and solutions for risk, compliance, and credit management.

  Interfax controls around 50 percent of the Russian corporate data market, its subscription-based financial intelligence forming the bulk of company revenue. IT-analytical business solutions alone account for approximately 75 percent of that revenue. The holding company altogether comprises more than 30 news producing and marketing companies. These are spread across Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and China.

  That scale of operation soon caught the attention of the Russian institutions that hand out the country's top media awards.

• 8. Recognition

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  In 2015, the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media gave Interfax the Runet Prize in the category of Culture, Media and Mass Communications. A year later, in 2016, the same body awarded Interfax a second Runet Prize, this time in the category of Economy, Business and Investment.

  That second win came just one year after the first. It signaled that outside recognition of Interfax had extended from its cultural coverage into its financial reporting as well.