LSEG Buys Quantile

Consolidation continues in the optimisation space, just months after Capitolis acquired LMrkts, London Stock Exchange Group has paid £274 million for optimisation provider Quantile Group. The deal is expected to close in 2022 subject to regulatory approvals.

Quantile will operate as a standalone entity within the post trade division of LSEG and continue to be led by its current CEO and co-founder, Andrew Williams, who will report to Daniel Maguire, LSEG’s group head of post trade.

Since its formation in 2015, Quantile has grown to over 80 employees, with offices in London, New York and Amsterdam. In January 2021, the Company received $51 million in growth investment from Spectrum Equity, a leading growth equity firm focused on internet-enabled software and information services companies.

The deal fills a gap for LSEG, which owns Refinitiv. With capital costs looming ever larger on the horizon for more financial markets participants, Quantile can fit neatly between the trading technology of Refinitiv and the clearinghouse of LCH.

“Quantile and LSEG share many of the same values, including a culture of innovation and a critical focus on service excellence, and this agreement will enable us to innovate further and faster to deliver optimisation services for the market,” says Williams. “We have built Quantile to be a bold and agile company which can react quickly to our clients’ needs, and we will continue to operate this way, but with the expertise and platform of a larger group.

“Clients continue to face new challenges and there is immense capacity for Quantile to help maximise efficiency and better manage risk, capital and funding requirements through our multilateral optimisation services,” he continues. “We look forward to the next stage of our journey as we continue to evolve and deliver the best service to our clients.”

Maguire adds, “The acquisition of Quantile builds on the strong growth delivered by LSEG and our Post Trade division. It significantly enhances LSEG’s multi-asset class customer offering across the transaction lifecycle by providing more sophisticated tools and infrastructure for customers to optimise their financial resources and drive greater operational efficiencies in OTC derivatives.”