New York – Morningstar is maintaining its roll-up of strategic properties in the research, analytics and data space by announcing earlier this week an agreement to purchase Logical Information Machines (LIM) as a wholly owned subsidiary. The deal was reportedly for $51.5 million, or just over 2.5 times revenue.
Known as a proprietary source of time series data for the energy, financial and Agro sectors, LIM has strong ties with trading operations at financial services companies. Because LIM offers products that are complimentary, but do not directly compete with Morningstar’s offerings, the acquisition represents a broadening of the services offered by Morningstar, as well as a potential distribution vehicle.
Morningstar is systematically increasing its dominance in its bid to be a global one-stop shop for data, research and tools. Its core businesses include:
- Quantitative Equity Research
- Fundamental Equity Research
- Asset Management
- Financial Research and Software
- Media
- Online Investment Brokerage
The table below is a list of acquisitions (perhaps not all) that Morning star has executed over the past several years.
| Asset Acquired |
Date Completed |
| mPower.com, Inc | July 2, 2003 |
| ePiper Separate Account Database | Not Disclosed |
| VARDS | January 4, 2005 |
| Ibbotson Associates | March 1, 2006 |
| Aspect Huntley | July 25, 2006 |
| Institutional Hedge Fund & Separate Account Database Division | August 1, 2006 |
| Fund Data Business (prev. Micropal & Assirt) | March 16, 2007 |
| Hemscott data, media & investor relations businesses | January 9, 2008 |
| Financial Computer Support, Inc., provider of practice management software for independent advisors | September 2, 2008 |
| Fundamental Data Limited, provider of data on closed-end funds in the United Kingdom | October 2, 2008 |
| 10-K Wizard, SEC EDGAR filing research company | December 4, 2008 |
| Tenfore Systems Limited, global provider of real-time market data and financial data workstations based in the United Kingdom | December 17, 2008 |
| InvestData (Proprietary) Limited business operations, provider of fund information in South Africa | December 29, 2008 |
| Global Reports | April 20, 2009 |
| Logical Information Machines | Pending Approval |