In February 2009 the company entered into an agreement with Fexco to acquire 100% of its shares for $ 159.9 million. In October 2006 the company made an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming independent from First Data company. 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. One of the common kinds of money transfer is a transfer via the international system of Western Union. In 1991, Western Union has sold some low-profit division of the company AT & T, GM Hughes Electronics, and to some others. In the same year the company changed its name to New Valley Corp. In 1849, Selden and Sibley, the founders of the future Western Union, created the New York State Printing Telegraph Company. In the summer of 1990 top managers of the Western Union Company spent day and night in the main office in Englewood (Colorado, USA). They needed to meet the challenge: to save the Western Union from bankruptcy, paying off the debts of the company millions of dollars. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.