S&P acquires Capital IQ for $200 million

Standard & Poor's acquired Capital IQ last week for $200 million. This was an interesting move on the part of S&P but came as no surprise to me. I have heard that couple of other players were interested too. It shows the desperation on the part of established data providers (S&P, Bloomberg, Reuters etc.) to move up the value chain and add more value. They have, for too long, taken their customers for granted and not responded to the new needs. Capital IQ was proving to be a tough competitor and S&P really had no choice. And Capital IQ really scored big - and one big reason was their acquisition of SimplyStocks last years.

Here is what one expert had to say: "Standard & Poor's Gains Strong Positioning with Capital IQ Score. Standard & Poor's has been working hard lately to align their capabilities more with the real-world decision support needs of their investor clients, so their announced plan to acquire Capital IQ, Inc. comes as no great surprise in terms of direction but a very pleasant one in terms of quality and emphaisis. Capital IQ is a powerful desktop analysis tool that facilitates both financial analysis and the complex human relationships and activities oftentimes required to complete financial deals and manage portfolios and sales prospects. It has a highly intuitive interface to high-quality fundamental data and research, a deep and wide business taxonomy extended well beyond standard industry SIC codes, drill-down research tools, project management and relationship management tools. Many financial content products talk workflow and some do it pretty well but Capital IQ goes further than most to look at the business of generating value in financial transactions from the human and market side on in rather than from specific data sets on out. As Standard & Poor's searches for a better front end to leverage its own deep analytical relationships with the financial industry it could hardly do better with Capital IQ for its own good - even as other traditional financial publishers wonder what good ideas are left to purchase."

Notice the phrase "real-world decision support needs of their investor clients". We, at finEye, have developed the best decision support system for equity research. I am not talking about basic charting, looking at ratios etc. Our software performs actual in-depth fundamental analysis. It thinks and learns. In contrast to Capital IQ (and others), our software is intelligent. This acquisition reinforces our belief that we are well positioned in this underserved market.