FT Alphaville " "D" is for data and that's good enough for Markit Me want data! London and New York, NY - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced the acquisition of Data Explorers, a leading provider of global securities lending data, from mid-market private equity firm Bowmark Capital. Press release from Markit today, April 2nd, 2012. Me analyse lots of data! London and New York, NY - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced that it has acquired Quantitative Services Group LLC (QSG). QSG is a leading provider of independent equity research, advanced trading analytics and investment consulting services. Press release from Markit on November 2, 2011. Me show monsters customers their own data! London and New York, NY - MarkitSERV, a leading electronic trade processing platform for OTC derivative transactions, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Logicscope Limited, a leading provider of post-trade workflow solutions and straight-through-processing (STP) for foreign exchange (FX) transactions. Press release from Markit on September 21, 2011. Me say if data is yummy risky! London and New York, NY - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced that it has acquired QuIC Financial Technologies, Inc (QuIC). QuIC provides the world's leading financial organisations with risk analytics solutions to test market and credit risk tolerance in financial portfolios and simulate risk at the enterprise level. Press release from Markit on January 12, 2011. Omm num num numbers... London and New York, NY - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Wall Street On Demand. Wall Street On Demand is a leading provider of services in the design, development and hosting of financial services websites, reports and tools. Press release from Markit on June 9, 2010. Me want more data! New York, NY and London - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced it has acquired technology assets from Storm Networks, LLC ("Storm"), a provider of solutions for the syndicated loan market that improve trade settlement workflow and connectivity with counterparties. Press release from Markit on February 15, 2010. New York, NY and London - Markit, a leading global financial information services company, today announced it has agreed to acquire ClearPar from FIS. ClearPar is an automated syndicated loan operations platform used for the settlement of par and distressed loan trades in the U.S. and Europe. Markit is a privately held company with over 2,300 employees and describes itself as a "global financial information services company." Worthy of note is the fact that Markit was only started in 2001. In a barn (no joke). The point being, however, that its growth has been quite astronomical, as evidenced by the appetite for acquisitions. The company had been trying to complete a particularly large acquisition of LCH.Clearnet earlier this year, but didn't succeed. With the string of acquisitions and considerable organic growth, the question remains whether Markit can successfully integrate all its new data and capabilities. Consider, for example, the phenomenal amount of work each acquisition creates in terms of database integration. The value in a company like Data Explorers is in being able to gather together all the relevant data on a given entity, and match it up with Markit's existing dataset. But without Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs), the task can become pretty hard if each database calls an entity something different, or if one isn't as up-to-date as the others. Take for example, Cable & Wireless ... or we mean, Cable & Wireless Communications plc... no, that's not it, it's Cable & Wireless Worldwide PLC ... no, still not right, it's Cable & Wireless International Fin NV, no ... Cable & Wireless Limited. Oh, and which one has the CDS written on it, which one has the debt, where's the common stock, which entities are still current, what's the forecasted EPS, and which entities have loans, and what's the short interest? Getting the most out of Data Explorers, and previous acquisitions, will hinge on Markit's ability to integrate and manage a diverse and increasingly comprehensive set of cookies data. No small task, especially when the pace of acquisitions and growth has been as fast as it has been. From there, it'll be a question of: what platform? At the moment, Markit forms a number of alliances with other data companies that have terminals, e.g. Reuters and Bloomberg. Markit does have its own platform (Desktop) but it has nothing like the reach of the other two. Will Markit at some point try to usurp the incumbents, or are they too big a battle? In the meantime, the company also has a lot of utility-like functions, around things like trade processing. While that segment is utility-like, with all the new regulations being baked up, those businesses could be what's providing the cash for acquisitions. And, the question on the minds of many: will the firm IPO at some point to fund further acquisitions? Guesses welcome below. Disclosure: The FT Alphaviller who wrote this worked at Markit from June 2009 to August 2011 and does not hold any beneficial interest in the company. This entry was posted by Lisa Pollack on Monday, April 2nd, 2012 at 16:06 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A. Tagged with data, data explorers, Markit.