The London Stock Exchange Group has agreed to acquire credit intelligence provider Octus from Permira and Octus management in an all-cash deal valued at about $3.54 billion, its largest acquisition since Refinitiv in 2019, with closing expected in the first half of 2027. Founded in 2013, Octus provides proprietary credit, distressed, and private-market data and workflow tools to more than 750 institutional customers, and is expected to add roughly $300 million to $320 million of revenue this year; the deal will be financed with external debt. The main objective is to deepen LSEG’s presence in credit and private-market data and shield its data and analytics business from AI-driven disruption with specialist content that, per CEO David Schwimmer, no large language model can easily replicate, extending a portfolio that already includes risk intelligence products such as World-Check, widely used for KYC and KYB screening. Key players include LSEG CEO David Schwimmer, Octus founder Kent Collier, who will continue to lead Octus and report to LSEG Data and Analytics co-heads Gianluca Biagini and Ron Lefferts, and seller Permira.
LSEG to Buy Octus in $3.5 Billion Deal as Data Analytics Push Accelerates
