The London Stock Exchange has acquired XTF, a US-based provider of analytics and ratings data for the fast-growing exchange traded funds (ETF) asset class.
Founded in 2008, XTF's historical ETF database covers the US, Canadian and Japanese marketplaces, and includes data on fund objectives, holdings, underlying index, portfolio exposure and peer group analysis. The stats, which cover over 6,000 indexes across asset class, sector and industry in over 30 countries, are available via the Web, direct data links and through white labelled feeds.
Clients include leading broker dealers, investment advisory firms, trade execution platforms, hedge funds, ETF sponsors, portfolio managers, RIAs, retail investors, and financial websites.
The acquisition of XTF comes just five months after the LSE agreed a $2.7 billion deal to acquire Russell Investments, flogging the asset management arm for $1.2 billion while combining the unit's indices with those of its inhouse FTSE division to create a titan in the ETF index space.
The ETF market is estimated to account for 20%t of global assets under management (AUM) by 2020.
The rapid growth has led to an increasing demand for analytic tools to help support investment decisions, says Mark Makepeace, LSE group director of information services and CEO of FTSE Russell says.
“The acquisition of XTF adds a further element to LSE’s leading offering in the ETF space," he says. "The rapid rise of the global ETF market is prompting demand from institutional and retail investors and their intermediaries for access to high quality global analytic tools and XTF offers a complementary product suite to sit alongside the Group’s global benchmarks and ETF listing venues.”
The business will be integrated into the Exchange's Information Services Division. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.