In February 2009 the company entered into an agreement with Fexco to acquire 100% of its shares for $ 159.9 million. In the 80's of Nineteenth century, Western Union was repeatedly tried capture by the railroad tycoon Jay Gould. He worked with Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first phone. In 1864, fearing the laying of long underwater lines, Western Union offered to carry out laying of telegraph lines to Europe through the Russian Alaska under the narrow Bering Strait and then to Siberia with branching in the major cities of Europe. In 1933, by the Western Union Company were invented "singing telegrams". In October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network.