| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| Key people | Lance Uggla, CEO |
| Products | Financial Data, Valuations and Trade Processing |
| Employees | 2300 (July 2011) |
| Website | www.markit.com |
Markit Group Limited. is a global financial information services company with over 2,300 employees.[1] The company provides independent data, valuations and trade processing across all asset classes in order to enhance transparency, reduce risk and improve operational efficiency. Its client base includes significant institutional participants in the financial marketplace.[1]
Markit is headquartered in London. Other Markit offices include New York, Dallas, Boulder, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Amsterdam, Frankfurt/Main, Luxembourg, Tokyo, Singapore, Delhi and Sydney.[1][2][3]
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Markit was founded in 2001 to provide daily credit default swap (CDS) pricing.[4]
Mark-It Partners (as it was called in its early days) acquired LoanX, Inc., a leading US provider of syndicated loan data, in December 2003.[5]
In May 2004 Mark-It bought Totem Valuations, a supplier of consensus valuations.[6]
In January 2006 Markit launched the first asset-backed securities index, ABX.HE.[7] In May 2006 Markit bought Communicator Inc from White Plains, New York, a financial information technology company.[8] In August 2006 Markit acquired Chasen Enterprises, provider of structured securities modelling.[9] In September 2006 Markit bought Amsterdam-based MarketXS, a financial data distribution and trading solution provider.[10]
Markit's credit derivative data became especially sought after since the start of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007.[11]
In November 2007 Markit acquired the owners of the iTraxx and CDX credit default swap indexes, International Index Company (IIC) and CDS Index Company (CDSIndexCo).[12] In December 2007 Markit announced the acquisition of SwapsWire,[13] an electronic trade confirmation network, which was completed in May 2008.[14]
In January 2008 Markit acquired the Boat MiFID-compliant trade reporting platform from a consortium of nine investment banks.[15] In April 2008 the company bought NTC Economics, a provider of global macro-economic indicators and owner of the widely-referenced Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) series.[16] In July 2008 Markit acquired JPMorgan Chase's FCS Corporation, a provider of syndicated loan market portfolio and risk management software and services, including the Wall Street Office family of products.[17][18]
In September 2009 Markit and Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) launched MarkitSERV, a joint venture to provide over-the-counter (OTC) derivative trade processing.[19] In October 2009 Markit acquired electronic loan-trade-processing platform ClearPar from Fidelity Information Services, announcing to work with DTCC to improve the processing of syndicated loans.[20]
In June 2010 Markit acquired Boulder, Colorado-based Wall Street on Demand (WSOD), which provides financial data visualization services.[21][22]
In January 2011 Markit acquired the risk analytics firm QuIC Financial Technologies, Inc (QuIC). QuIC provides financial organisations with risk analytics solutions to test market and credit risk tolerance in financial portfolios and simulate risk at the enterprise level.[23]