About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Would ICE Really Buy Bloomberg?

Subscribe to our newsletter

By Andrew Delaney.

The London Stock Exchange’s planned $27 billion acquisition of Refinitiv – the former Reuters – got us thinking: who’s left of the independent market data vendors, and who would buy them?

Of the major global vendors that have dominated the space over the past decade or so, only one independent remains. With Interactive Data Corp. taken out of the marketplace by ICE – formally the InterContinental Exchange and owner of the New York Stock Exchange and other markets – and the former Telekurs probably inextricably integrated into the Swiss SIX exchange operator, only Bloomberg still stands as an independent entity whose primary activity is market data.

In the wake of the LSE-Refinitiv news – and the ensuing discussion of all its benefits in bringing together data and transactions, exploiting indices to create derivative products and data services, and scale, scale, scale – we mused whether the time was finally right for one of the FAANGS to swoop in and swallow up out industry. Some years ago, we speculated in these pages that Google might in fact make a play for Reuters. It never happened, though the story remains top of our ‘most read’ list.

So would Google make a play for Bloomberg, we wondered? Think of what it could do with all that data. Or maybe Amazon, perhaps the ultimately electronic marketplace? And speaking of markets, let’s not forget eBay, whose CEO once helped run Reuters; maybe some interest there?

In each of these cases, the prospect of regulation made the prospect of a deal – for us, at least – unlikely. Would Google/Amazon/ANO FAANG of your choice really be willing to take on the levels of scrutiny required by today’s financial markets? The answer is almost certainly no, notwithstanding the fact that they have their own regulatory fish to fry.

Perhaps the answer is closer to home after all. It would take a big and very aggressive fish indeed to snag Bloomberg. ICE fits the bill. Snapping up NYSE Group and IDC were no mean feats. If anyone can xxx Bloomberg – long the No. 1 market data vendor – ICE can.

Combining them into a financial transactions and data powerhouse would doubtless have its challenges. But ICE has done it before, and the likely outcome would resemble the LSE’s vision for its Refinitiv tie-in – a global multi-asset trading and market data factory that relies less on exchange activities and wrings increasing value from data, analytics and indices.

Ah, but would Bloomberg really sell. Controlled by Michael Bloomberg, the decision to sell would be relatively straightforward. And the short answer is: Michael’s gotta sell sometime. Like the rest of us, he ain’t getting any younger. His true passion seems to rest elsewhere; politics, yes, but philanthropy perhaps more. There is no dynasty to take over.

So, will ICE really buy Bloomberg? The strong signals we are receiving here at A-Team HQ is that it will. Does it make sense? Yes, it appears to. How much? More than $27 billion.

It’s consolidation, Jim, but not as we know it. We may just have to get used to it. Stay tuned.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: How to leverage data lineage for actionable business insights

Data lineage is a must-have for financial institutions, but is it being used to its greatest extent, and is it delivering actionable business insights that inform product development and support competitive advantage? This webinar will address these questions, looking first at the status quo of data lineage across capital markets, and moving on to discuss...

BLOG

TNS Expands Market Data Solutions Through West Highland Acquisition

Earlier this month, Transaction Network Services (TNS) acquired West Highland Support Services, with the aim of enhancing TNS’s services across the entire trading infrastructure stack. According to the company, this strategic move positions TNS as the only Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider offering a vendor-neutral approach to market data application management. “This is a great fit,” Steven...

EVENT

AI in Capital Markets Summit London

The AI in Capital Markets Summit will explore current and emerging trends in AI, the potential of Generative AI and LLMs and how AI can be applied for efficiencies and business value across a number of use cases, in the front and back office of financial institutions. The agenda will explore the risks and challenges of adopting AI and the foundational technologies and data management capabilities that underpin successful deployment.

GUIDE

Regulatory Data Handbook 2023 – Eleventh Edition

Welcome to the eleventh edition of A-Team Group’s Regulatory Data Handbook, a popular publication that covers new regulations in capital markets, tracks regulatory change, and provides advice on the data, data management and implementation requirements of more than 30 regulations across UK, European, US and Asia-Pacific capital markets. This edition of the handbook includes new...