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S&P Global on Wednesday struck a $1.8bn all-cash deal to buy private markets data provider With Intelligence, as the US financial data group seeks to expand beyond public markets amid the boom in alternative assets.
The deal will give S&P Global, best known for its public market indices and credit rating agency, access to a vast amount of proprietary data from private capital groups. Alternative assets could total as much as $40tn by the end of the decade, according to Boston Consulting Group.
There have been a number of similar deals struck for specialised data providers in recent years. Last year, S&P was pipped in its efforts to acquire UK private markets data group Preqin, which BlackRock bought for £2.5bn, the Financial Times previously reported.
With Intelligence’s private equity owners have rolled up a series of data providers in a spree of acquisitions, buying private equity deal tracker SPS, real estate deal-focused data platform Realfin and trade publication The Deal over the past year.
With Intelligence, which was founded in 1998, serves more than 3,000 clients globally and is expected to generate roughly $130mn in revenues this year.
The sale will mark a profitable exit for With Intelligence’s majority owner Motive Partners, a financial technology-focused private equity group, as well as minority investor ICG and the company’s management. The deal is expected to close by early next year at the latest.
The deal will give S&P Global access to proprietary data from 34,000 private equity groups, 19,000 real estate investors and 17,000 hedge funds, along with thousands of other private capital groups.
S&P Global has made some advances into providing data to serve private capital clients. It recently announced plans to launch an index tracking the top-50 private equity funds, in collaboration with fintech group NewVest, and is also developing a private markets analytics platform.
In recent years, S&P Global struck a $44bn deal to buy IHS Markit, while London Stock Exchange Group agreed a $27bn acquisition of Refinitiv, in two of the marquee deals for data providers.