The Thomson Corp. has agreed to acquire Quantitative Analytics (QAI), a maker of database integration and analysis software for financial services firms.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Though a private company, QAI’s software solutions are used by more than 200
of the world’s major investment firms for securities selection, modeling, portfolio construction and trading strategy development.
The move should help Thomson Financial, the corporate information provider’s investment management unit, integrate proprietary data and other bits of information to create an integrated database of financial information for customers.
Thomson will also be able to provide a suite of analytical tools to query or “mine” the database for insights and trading ideas.
Suresh Kavan, president of investment management segments of Thomson Financial, said in a statement Thomson believes it will be well positioned to penetrate new markets, address expanded opportunities in new geographies and improve client performance in the $2.5 billion buy-side market.
“In a highly competitive and often fragmented market, QAI has established itself as the leading provider of multi-asset class, high-end analytics,” Kavan said. “I believe the combined capabilities of our businesses will immediately position Thomson Financial at the forefront of the solutions space for investment managers.”
Thomson and QAI expect to close the transaction shortly, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. QAI’s management team and employees will continue their work in the investment management segment of Thomson Financial.
Thomson’s interest in QAI, a long-time partner, is clear. Information providers who can provide highly integrated information that customers can tap into with a handful of keystrokes can get a leg up on competition.
This is because enterprises are often faced with a glut of integration that threatens to spiral out of control. Not surprisingly, companies with solid reputations for bundling information and rendering it in a clean, efficient manner gain a solid reputation.
Other players in the multi-billion-dollar integration software space include
IBM and Informatica.
