Private Market Data Giant Dun & Bradstreet’s Acquisition Agreed for $7.7bn

Venerable private markets data and analytics giant Dun & Bradstreet has agreed to be acquired in a US$7.7 billion deal that will be partly funded by a debt and equity.

Californian investment private-equity firm Clearlake Capital’s acquisition will take the 184-year old Wall Street company private four years after beginning its second spell as a listed firm.

Dun & Bradstreet is among the largest providers of data and analytics covering private equity and private credit and is also relied upon by investor for its DUNS Number identifiers, paid-for unique identity codes that are used by millions of companies around the world.

The deal comes as the company’s stock languishes 60 per cent below its 2020 listing price, according to Reuters data. Nevertheless, Dun and Bradstreet has found new business as investment in private markets by institutional investors grows. Among its most recent developments, the company has collaborated with LSEG to help the London Stock Exchange operator better compete in the privates data market.

“Dun and Bradstreet has built a trusted, globally recognised brand and has amassed a preeminent set of data and analytics that empower organisations of all sizes,” Clearlake co-founder and managing partner Behdad Eghbali and partner James Pade said in a statement.

“As companies become more data-centric in their decisioning in this fast-paced world, we see vast potential for Dun and Bradstreet to deliver AI-powered solutions to their global client base.”

The deal is “go-shop” arrangement, which permits Dun & Bradstreet to seek better deals from alternative buyers within 30 days of the transaction’s agreement.

According to Bloomberg News, Clearlake sought a $5.75bn bridging loan to fund the acquisition. That’s expected to be converted into longer-term financing via the bonds or leveraged loans markets.

SimCorp Axioma Users Have Access to Yield Book Fixed Income Data

Yield Book’s securitised debt analytics have been incorporated into SimCorp’s Axioma risk management system. The partnership builds on the Danish fixed-income data integration provider’s collaboration with Yield Book’s parent LSEG Analytics.

Users of SaaS-based Axioma will now have access to in-depth risk data, said Allen Zimmerman, Managing Director, Head of Americas at SimCorp.

“This partnership extends the depth of our fixed income capabilities by leveraging Yield Book’s market-renowned prepayment models and analytics directly within our products to support the most sophisticated fixed income and multi-asset managers,” Zimmerman said. “This is another step toward enabling faster and more informed investment decisions.”

Mosaic Smart Data Acquired by AI Insights Specialist Behavox

Mosaic Smart Data, which provides institutional investors with tools to mine insights from their transaction data, has been acquired by artificial intelligence insights company Behavox.

London-based Mosaic’s software, which provides liquidity discovery for over-the-counter markets to clients including JPMorgan and ING, will be deployed to enrich Behavox’s trade surveillance technology, which is undergoing customer testing.

“We are excited to join Behavox at a time when AI adoption in financial markets is accelerating,” said Mosaic chief executive Matthew Hodgson. “Customers increasingly seek AI-driven insights to analyse pre-trade journeys and extract intelligence from communication data to help them make more money.”

Snowflake Provides Access to OpenAi Models in Expanded Microsoft Collaboration

Users of Snowflake’s Cortex AI platform now have access to OpenAI’s models through an expanded partnership with Microsoft, enabling them to create artificial intelligence data agents to streamline workflows.

Described by Snowflake as a “watershed moment”, the new capabilities will be available by the integration of Snowflake Cortex AI with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service in Azure AI Foundry. Snowflake said the new offering will save businesses time and money.

“There’s enormous power in our customers being able to use OpenAI models directly in Snowflake’s secure platform, unlocking multimodal, agentic, and conversational AI use cases that drive high impact,” said Christian Kleinerman, executive vice president of product at Snowflake.

Quantexa Raises Further $175m for AI-led Decision Intelligence Offering

Quantexa has raised a further US$175 million, boosting estimated market valuation for the UK-based decision intelligence solutions provider to $2.6 billion.

The company said the additional money will be used to “progress against its mission to help enterprises and government agencies across multiple markets stay ahead in the race for AI-driven DI”.

The latest series F funding round was led by Teachers Venture Growth, part of the huge Canadian Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

GLEIF Names Chinese Certification Authority as vLEI Issuer

The China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA) has been announced as the first Chinese overseer of virtual identifiers created by the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF).

The CFCA has become a Qualified vLEI Issuer (QVI) in the Global LEI System. VLEIs are used to verify the digital identities of companies and assets in financial transactions.

The CFCA will use vLEIs to help organisations use LEIs in conjunction with Chinese identity tools. It will also investigate other ways that vLEIs can verify identities in other use cases, such as real-time account registration verification, tamper-resistant digital signing, verifiable SME credit records and ESG-based credentialing, the GLEIF said.

Bloomberg Expands Climate Risk Offering with MARS Enhancement

Bloomberg clients can now use the New York-based company’s MARS risk management tool to assess the threats to their portfolios from climate change.

MARS Climate, an addition to the data behemoth’s physical and transition risk suite of analytics, offers climate scenario analyses based on the framework devised by the Network for Greening Financial System (NGFS). The new functionality is powered by the Transition Risk Assessment Company Tool (TRACT), created by Bloomberg’s new energy finance business, BloombergNEF.

Clients can query revenue risks and opportunities inherent in their business activities, supply chains and regional presence, measured according to the different NGFS scenarios.

Governance, Security Woes ‘Holding Back Financial Sector Growth’

Data governance and security concerns are so great among UK financial services companies that they are holding back growth, according to a survey by secure computing company Optalysys.

The survey of more than 250 financial company IT professionals found that 70 per cent of decision makers said data security was holding them back, while 45 per cent said their firms experienced challenges in managing or accessing sensitive data.

“The financial services sector is the lifeblood of the UK economy, yet businesses are being limited by outdated approaches to data security,” said Optalysys chief executive Nick New. “Simply put, businesses can’t harness the real power of AI or can’t unlock the full value of their data because they are too busy trying to keep it safe. This is a massive missed opportunity and it’s holding the entire sector back.”

Zema Global Streamlines Forward-Curve Data Use

Energy commodities markets data and data management provider Zema Global has unveiled its Curve Viewer tool, which enables clients to better interrogate their data and construct the forward curves that are essential to decision making.

The new addition to Zema Global’s platform offers deeper insights into clients’ own data, the company said. It provides customisable data views, has a more user-friendly navigation structure and can be flexible enough to be deployed across trading, risk management and other functions.

“Data is the cornerstone of effective decision-making in the energy and commodity markets, but its complexity often limits its usability – Curve Viewer changes that,” said chief executive Andrea Remyn Stone. “By simplifying access and creating tools that are intuitive for a broader audience, we’re helping organisations unlock their full potential. This is about ensuring that the right data reaches the right people to support critical decision making.”

Colorado, US-based Zema Global has been offering enterprise data and data management services tailored to traders of energy commodities for a quarter of a century and has begun servicing financial institutions since it acquired Morningstar’s commodity information business late last year.

QuantCube Builds Data Model to Predict Drought

Investors in agricultural commodities are in sites for a new Hydric Stress Indicator launched by alternative data specialist QuantCube Technology. The tool is designed to provide insights into drought risks in the crop-producing regions of 20 countries.

The technology, which is available to commodity traders, financial institutions, agricultural growers and food producers, uses meteorological data and satellite imagery to offer early warnings of drought.

“As climate risks continue to challenge agricultural markets, the QuantCube Hydric Stress Indicator provides traders with a critical advantage in enabling them to anticipate disruptions,” said Alice Froidevaux, director of product development and CFA ESG at Paris-based QuantCube Technology. “In particular, the indicator is a game-changer for participants in agricultural markets eager to optimise their hedging strategies.”