McGraw Hill Financial Inc. is close to acquiring SNL Financial LC, a financial news and analysis data provider, for more than $2 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.
McGraw Hill, a high-growth, high-margin benchmarks, content and analytics company, is looking to expand its data services with the acquisition of SNL Financial. McGraw Hill already owns S&P Capital IQ, a provider of real-time data, research and analytics to investors, bankers, advisors, wealth managers, etc. They also own Platts, a leading provider of information and for the energy, petrochemicals, metals and agriculture markets.
The expanded data services would give McGraw Hill the ability to offer more to its clients.
The Wall Street Journal reports that financial-data firms are becoming important as hedge funds and brokers are increasingly using data, especially value proprietary data, to their approach in trading.
Bloomberg adds that the deal also shows that there is interest in well-established financial services related media, as Japan's Nikkei just purchased recently the Financial Times Group.
The deal, which was reported by two people familiar with the matter, is not yet "final and could still fall through," according to Bloomberg. The sources asked not to be identified as the information is not yet public.
Wall Street adds that the deal is one of the several transactions to be anticipated in the sector.
First Data Corp and SunGard, two giants in the financial data and transactions sector, recently filed for an IPOs. Wall Street also reports that SunGard had suitors expressed interest in its acquisition.
McGraw Hill, which is based in New York, sold its education business three years ago to focus on its financial service business. It also owns Standard $ Poor's Rating Service, S&P Dow Jones Indices and J.D. Power.
SNL Financial, which is based in Charlottesville, Virginia, is owned by New Mountain Capital. New Mountain acquired SNL Financial in 2011 for $450 million.
