The value that Wall Street places on access to
billions of bytes of data, rather than old-school
stock picking, became abundantly clear as two
of the biggest providers of such information
become one in the biggest takeover of the year.
S&P Global announced that it would acquire IHS
Markit, based in London, for about $44 billion in
an all-stock deal.
Data collection has become pivotal on Wall
Street as algorithms and high-speed trading
drive global markets. And growth has been
explosive for the companies that can provide
that information instantly and in bulk.
IHS and Markit merged just four years ago to
create a $13 billion company. The company has
almost tripled in value since then, and is now
worth close to $37 billion.
The size of the deal announced this week eclipsed
Nvidia’s acquisition of rival chipmaker ArmImage: Richard Drew