S&P, IHS to Offload Units Ahead of Merger to Meet Antitrust Conditions

S&P, IHS to Offload Units Ahead of Merger to Meet Antitrust Conditions
The S&P Global logo is displayed on its offices in the financial district in New York City, on Dec. 13, 2018. Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Reuters
Updated:

S&P Global and IHS Markit said on Monday they would sell a couple of businesses to satisfy antitrust requirements attached to the $44 billion merger of the financial information providers.

S&P Global will sell securities data solutions provider CUSIP Global Services (CGS) to financial data services firm FactSet for $1.93 billion in cash, while IHS will offload its Base Chemicals business to News Corp. for $295 million.

The divestments come a month after the pair won U.S. antitrust approval for their planned merger, provided they sell certain businesses and scrap a non-compete agreement with a retail gasoline deals data provider.

While Base Chemicals provides price data and analysis on key industrial chemicals, CGS provides identifiers for financial instruments across exchanges around the world.

IHS and S&P Global said on Monday they expect their combined company to receive net sale proceeds of about $1.3 billion from these deals, which remain subject to further review and approval by antitrust regulators.

S&P Global also said it has pledged to sell its Leveraged Commentary and Data business, along with a related family of leveraged loan indices as a condition for regulatory approval.