MSCI Inc., a leading provider of research-based indexes and analytics, announced that it is acquiring Insignis, Inc., a data collection and aggregation service for the financial industry. Terms were not disclosed.
Insignis provides outsourced data collection for financial firms, maintaining data on performance, attribution, and trade-cost analysis. Based in Chicago, the firm got its start collecting information on complex futures and swaps. The firm collects data from 35 custodians, 15 futures brokers and 20 OTC managers with over $2 trillion in market value.
MSCI currently uses Insignis for performance information in the risk analytics applications it bought from Riskmetrics, and it will integrate the firm with the former Riskmetrics product suite.
The full press release: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/msci-acquires-data-aggregator-insignis-2015-09-15
Our Take
MSCI has divested most of its research related businesses, including CFRA and ISS, but has stubbornly held on to its ESG research, which seems to be paying off. Its ESG research grew 19% in the second quarter of 2015, excluding the effect of its acquisition of GMI Ratings (up 48% including GMI).
The Insignis purchase supports the Riskmetrics product line, but also gives MSCI a data aggregator experienced in collecting information from multiple sources in a true ‘big data’ fashion. The acquisition may cause some disquiet for firms like 1010data.