My thoughts on joining the S&P Global family

So almost 20 years to the day since we incorporated 451 Research,1 our scrappy startup effort of an analyst company with the funny name that people used to get wrong has been sold to a new owner. The press release is here and here’s a nice tweet from S&P summing it up.

We are becoming part of the S&P Global family, joining its Market Intelligence unit, vastly expanding our sphere of influence.2

Like S&P, we know a bit about M&A ourselves, having acquired a few companies in our time – including Yankee Group in 2013 – and having as one of our key assets our M&A KnowledgeBase, charting every tech & telecom deal since 2002. So M&A is in our DNA, as it were.

And quite simply the chance to join a much larger, well-established global firm that is vastly experienced in delivering premium data and insights to corporate clients across all industries was too good to resist.

I am personally very excited to be joining a company with such a strong commitment to – and existing investment in – AI and analytics in terms of its products (and now in its market research with 451). In March 2018 S&P acquired Kensho Technologies and has invested further in its platform to enhance the information delivered to clients using machine learning-driven analytics. I look forward to digging in and understanding what else can be done to use machine learning to leverage the enormous volumes of data at our fingertips to deliver timely and insightful research to our vastly expanded set of customers.

Finally, I wanted to pay tribute to all the 451 Research staff – both current and alumni – who have made the company what it is. This applies to my fellow co-founders and especially to our CEO Martin McCarthy, who has always maintained a steadfast focus on sustainable growth through good times – and some very tough ones in the early days – and who steered us through the M&A process so skilfully. Thank you all.

Now, on to the next chapter with S&P Global!

  1. December 23 1999, I remember as I was the one that signed the necessary documents []
  2. S&P is more than 150 years old and traces its roots to a report published by Henry Varnum Poor on the investment opportunities in the U.S. railroad industry. S&P was bought by McGraw-Hill in 1966. After various acquisitions and divestitures, what was by 2016 McGraw-Hill Financial changed its name to S&P Global and the Market Intelligence unit is one of four units of S&P Global, the others being S&P Global Ratings, S&P Dow Jones Indices (the unit behind the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average) and S&P Global Platts, which is focused on the commodities, energy, petrochemicals, metals, and agriculture markets. A full company history is here. []

2 thoughts on “My thoughts on joining the S&P Global family”

  1. Congratulations, Nick — it seems like a great fit. So if you incorporated in December 1999, I might have briefed you with the FatWire team for the first time in 451’s first six or eight months.

    1. You did indeed, Tim, at our office at 920 Broadway, I recall meeting you and Mark there back in the day! Thanks for the kind words.

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