Private investment firm Carousel Capital last week acquired Mergent, Inc., a provider of business and finance information on global publicly listed and private companies. Mergent serves a global customer base of reference libraries, business informatics providers and investment professionals. Carousel Capital acquired Mergent from Xinhua Finance Limited, a financial information and media service provider in China. Carousel Capital partnered with the current management team of Mergent to make the purchase.
Mergent's history in publishing dates back to 1900, when it was the original publisher of Moody's securities manuals. Mergent's database includes descriptive and fundamental information on domestic and international companies; pricing and terms and conditions data on fixed income and equity securities; and corporate event data. Customers can receive the data through customized data feeds, online user interfaces and printed publications.
Mergent also develops and licenses equity and fixed income investment products based on proprietary investment methodologies. The company's index calculation platform is used by large index companies. Mergent's index calculation and pricing distribution protocols are used to administer index rules and distribute real-time pricing data.
Mergent certainly has an impressive stable of offerings and that portfolio should continue to grow with this new support from Carousel Capital. Carousel has experience in this arena, and will likely bring enough resources to the table to help Mergent further develop its niche information to a customer base that demands it. Even in tough economic times, the need for financial information is steady. So look for Mergent to experience growth from this acquisition in the short term.