By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Business information provider S&P Global Inc on Friday took a step closer to becoming a data powerhouse as it won EU antitrust approval for its $44 billion takeover of IHS Markit Ltd to better compete with Bloomberg and Refinitiv.
S&P announced the deal last November, underscoring the consolidation in the industry as companies seek to create one-stop shops to attract the biggest clients and invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The European Commission approved the deal on condition S&P sells IHS’ U.S Oil Pricing Agency Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), PetroChemWire and the Coal, Metals and Mining businesses.
S&P clinched a deal in August to sell the assets to News Corp for $1.15 billion.
“With this conditional approval the problematic overlaps in commodity price assessments, and also in the area of loan identifiers and indices are fully removed,” European antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
Reuters exclusively reported on Oct. 12 that S&P would win the EU green light for the deal.
S&P Global is a distant third by annual revenue behind Bloomberg and Refinitiv, based data from on market research firm Burton-Taylor. Acquiring IHS Markit, the No. 8 player would accelerate its growth.
Thomson Reuters, parent of Reuters News, competes with Platts, Argus and OPIS in providing news and information to the oil markets.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Editing by Louise Heavens)
