McGraw-Hill Unit Acquires CMA

S&P Capital IQ, a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. (), announced the acquisition of Credit Market Analysis Limited (CMA) from CME Group Inc. (CME - Analyst Report), the majority owner of Dow Jones Indexes. However, the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

London-based Credit Market Analysis Limited is an independent data provider in the over-the-counter markets. The acquisition strengthens S&P Capital IQ’s position in the market, where it competes with Thomson Reuters Corporation (TRI - Snapshot Report), FactSet Research Systems Inc. (FDS - Analyst Report) and Bloomberg.

With growing needs of investors to access readily available data, a fierce competition has emerged among the companies offering financial information solutions to grab a wider market through superior functionality and investor oriented services.

To grab its share of market, the company took a similar stance in past and acquired QuantHouse, the provider of market statistics and trading solutions along with R2 Financial Technologies that offers risk and scenario-based analytics across different asset classes to investors, risk and portfolio managers for pricing, hedging and capital maintenance.

These moves enable McGraw-Hill to offer investors access to global exchange pricing, securities valuations and asset analytics, while facilitating S&P Capital IQ to create real-time platforms, data base and analytics.

S&P Capital IQ provides a comprehensive research package to its buy-side clients. The package not only includes fundamental and quantitative research and analysis solutions but also covers equity and market research reports and earnings estimates with valuation models from leading brokers. Capital IQ serves investment banks, hedge funds, private-equity firms, and provides complete financial tools to mutual funds and asset managers.

Currently, we have a long-term “Neutral” recommendation on McGraw-Hill, which competes with Pearson plc (PSO - Snapshot Report). Moreover, the company holds a Zacks #3 Rank that translates into a short-term ‘Hold’ rating.