Osttra Sold by S&P and CME
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: April 15, 2025
S&P Global and CME Group have announced the signing of a definitive agreement to sell their post-trade services joint venture Osttra, to investment funds managed by KKR, primarily its private equity strategy.
The firms say the deal equals total enterprise value of $3.1 billion, (further financial terms were not disclosed) and is subject to customary purchase price adjustments, which will be divided evenly between S&P Global and CME Group pursuant to their 50/50 joint venture.
Osttra was established in 2021, and brought together services like Traiana, TriResolve, Reset, and MarketWire under one roof. It offers trade processing, trade lifecycle, and optimisation services across interest rates, FX, credit and equities.
The Osttra management team, led by co-CEOs Guy Rowcliffe and John Stewart, was put in place when the JV was formed and will continue to lead the company in the same roles. KKR says it will support Osttra’s growth and role as a critical market infrastructure provider by increasing investments in technology and innovation across its platform.
KKR is making its investment primarily through its North American private equity strategy. Following the close of the transaction, it says it will support Osttra in creating a broad-based equity ownership programme to provide all of the company’s nearly 1,500 employees the opportunity to participate in the benefits of ownership. “This strategy is based on the belief that team member engagement through ownership is a key driver in building stronger companies,” the firm states. “Since 2011, more than 60 KKR portfolio companies have awarded billions of dollars of total equity value to over 150,000 non-senior management employees.”
Subject to regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2025.
The Full FX View
This is an important development in financial markets, not just FX, given Osttra’s position as a provider of so many critical services, which means there will be keen interest over KKR’s intentions for the business.
The relatively short life of Osttra has highlighted, in my view, one of the challenges of joint ventures – namely who is really providing the driving force for growth? There is a sense that the company has been treading water for some time now – rumours and reports of a sale have been circling for well over a year – and that rarely helps a business. If the owners are not sure they want it, it is that much harder to motivate those actually working in it. Even the business’ value doesn’t seem to have risen that far. In its 2022 Annual Report, CME valued its stake in Osttra at $1.4 billion, if $3.1 was the final number the JV owners would have made money on the deal, but not much.
In FX terms, perhaps the inertia has been best revealed by a seeming lack of progress on the Baton Systems PvP payment solution. Osttra took that business over more than a year ago and beyond some marketing material, very little of substance has emerged in the interim. Of course, this doesn’t mean that initiatives are not underway, it’s just that they aren’t obvious – and so much of establishing a product in the market structure is about awareness.
Immediate reaction from market participants is muted, they want to see what the new owners will do with the business, however some voices are expressing concern over the role of private equity. As one operations manager put it to me, “We don’t need this to be a ‘flip’ scenario, where KKR strip the firm down and sells it on’.
Rightly or wrongly, this was seen as one of the problems for Refinitiv under Blackstone ownership – costs were cut and morale dropped as it become obvious the business was being set up for yet another sale. The very fact that what is now LSEG FX is behind its development curve compared to several of its peers could be put down to multiple ownership over a relatively short period of time which curtailed development.
Time will tell what KKR’s long-term intentions are, but for now it has bought a good business that has the feel of one that wants to push ahead, but maybe has not had the opportunity. If KKR provides that push, the whole industry will benefit, however if it is, as some fear, merely looking to ‘flip’ the business in a couple of years, then participants better start checking out their tech redundancy procedures.
Osttra has never been, and will never be, a ‘sexy’ part of the financial market infrastructure, but it plays a vital role in ensuring those markets function efficiently and effectively – a lot of eyes will be focused on how the business evolves from here under new ownership.
