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Western Union is now a public company known as "The Western Union Company," trading once again on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol WU. Today's Western Union is a global money transfer business with annual revenues now exceeding $4 Billion - Net income approaching $1 Billion and Cash Flows from operations of approximately $1 Billion. The principal operating entity of "The Western Union Company" is "Western Union Financial Services, Inc." The international business is now the driver of money transfer growth, accounting for over 60% of revenues. This business growth is fueled by a continuing expansion of the worldwide agent network that now numbers over 285,000 agents throughout the world in over 200 countries and territories. You can learn more about Western Union by visiting their web-site http://www.westernunion.com (Western Union, which was bought by First Data Corporation in 1995, once again became a separate company on September 29, 2006 when First Data Corporation spun-off the company by distributing all its interest in Western Union to its stockholders.)" |
Access to the Western Union Financial Services website can be obtained by clicking on About Western Union at left. That page also contains a brief history of the Telegraph Company's technical and marketing activities from the time the Company was restructured along guidelines established by the U.S. Congress as a result of its investigation of the telegraph industry conducted in the late 1950s and early 1960s through its bankruptcy and dissolution in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a result of other institutional changes.
Click on at left Pathway to Oblivion for a chronology of the financial and organizational machinations affecting the Western Union Corporation, the Telegraph Company, and other units of the Company occurring from Russell McFall's retirement as Chairman of the Corporation in 1979 through the Corporation's bankruptcy and the closure and sell-off of business units under the investor Bennett LeBow"s tenure, ending with the acquisition of the public message service by First Data Corporation in l995. That chronology was written by Warren Bechtel, who was the Company's spokesman through that period and is now a member of the RWUEA board.
A building constructed by the Company at 60 Hudson Street in 1930 in the SoHo district of lower Manhattan served as its headquarters until 1973. The building has been selected by New York City as an example of the art deco style of architecture and has designated it as a Landmark. The Association recently installed a plaque near the main entrance to the building noting its past service as Telegraph Company Headquarters. Click on 60 Hudson St. Plaque at upper left for photos and information pertaining to that and other similar art deco buildings and for photos taken at the ceremony in September 2005 in which installation of the plaque was celebrated.
A copy of the last Company newsletter published in March 1996 that contains considerable historical information can be seen by clicking on Last WU Newsletter.
Access to our sister web site, WesternUnionAlumni.com, can by obtained by clicking on To WUAlumni at left above.
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