Capital IQ is Knockin’ on Thomson’s Door
Jinfo Blog

23rd September 2010

By Heidi Longaberger

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On September 21 data and analytics firm Capital IQ announced the acquisition of TheMarkets.com (TheMarkets) for a rumoured $300 million (http://digbig.com/5bckhx). Capital IQ has a roster of customers in industries including financial services, private equity and energy, but with this acquisition they will add the international buy-side clientele of TheMarkets (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e30657 and August product review http://digbig.com/5bckhw). Most importantly, Capital IQ will gain investment research reports, earnings models and estimates that will be a favorable compliment to their existing services. The acquisition will also give Capital IQ additional leverage against its main competitors. While Capital IQ considers FactSet (http://www.factset.com/) to be its current head-to-head competition, TheMarkets' main competitor is Thomson (http://thomsonreuters.com/). With TheMarkets content, Capital IQ is now in a position to provide an enhanced product that will appeal to the Thomson investment research and estimates audience. For current and potential subscribers of both or either platform, questions concerning any possible content changes, access, integration and cost are of course at the forefront. According to Bill Murphy, chief technology officer at Capital IQ, the integration will take place 'as quickly as possible though no definitive timeline is in place.' Murphy emphasizes that Capital IQ will not do anything 'rash' with the content or availability. 'We want to integrate the content into Capital IQ and combine it with our own breadth of data to provide a total user experience.' TheMarkets' content will be placed as a premium product on the CIQ platform and priced similarly to TheMarkets' current structure. Murphy explains that the goal is to provide the easiest way for the user to gain access to the combination’s robust product offerings and create efficiencies between Capital IQ’s current investment data platform and workflow solutions with the research and content from TheMarkets. As far as how the platform will actually look, Murphy says that the look will 'mimic the current TheMarkets platform, but Capital IQ’s platform is more flexible.' For information professionals, access to investment research reports especially has always been an expensive and somewhat frustrating endeavor, as the reports themselves can be priced prohibitively, or one doesn’t have a relationship with the investment bank, or access requires buying into a bundle of products that a user may not need. Having always had a reputation for listening to its user base, hopefully Capital IQ will continue that history with this acquisition, and information professionals can look forward to some good additional choices for investment research and financial data.

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