The company established ticker tape telegraph machines in offices, gentlemen's clubs, banks etc.

Over the course of its history, Extel (the name coming into common use for the company in the 1950s) grew into one of the leading news agencies, provider of financial information and associated businesses.

Among the many notable achievement were 'Extel cards',[1] the very first corporate snapshots/tear-sheets with brief data on profit and loss, employees, business activities and executive management.

In 2016, WeConvene, a cloud-based corporate access platform acquired Extel, and subsequently sold [8]in 2018 to their larger competitor, Institutional Investor, at that time owned by Euromoney.

In November 2022, Euromoney was delisted following a purchase by a private equity consortium[9] and II Research was separated from Institutional Investor.