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Blackrock’s horizons are increasingly broadening: the American giant, which has long invested in alternative sectors, has acquired Preqin, a British financial data company, for 2.55 billion pounds ($3.23 billion) in cash.
Blackrock beat out several rivals in the race for Preqin, including S&P Global, Bloomberg and the London Stock Exchange Group. The British firm, which specializes in tracking the performance of private equity firms and hedge funds, had been put up for sale by its founder, Mark O’Hare.
The price (and the competition)
In order to acquire Preqin, Blackrock offered a sum equal to 13 times the company’s $240 million in projected revenue in 2024. Preqin has grown rapidly, seeing revenues increase 20% each year for the past three years and now has 200,000 users in 90 countries, to whom it provides data on 60,000 fund managers and 30,000 investors. The deal also includes O’Hare, who founded Preqin 20 years ago, now becoming a vice president of BlackRock.
“Our clients are moving from choosing products to building portfolios, and this shift requires technology, data and analytics,” said Rob Goldstein, BlackRock’s chief operating officer. “We expect data to be the industry’s driving force in technology, capital formation, investing and risk management.”
Integration with Aladdin software
The company will keep Preqin as a separate company but will integrate its data into Aladdin, BlackRock’s investment management software. “Together with Preqin, we can make private markets investing easier and more accessible while building a better-connected platform for investors and fund managers,” said Sudhir Nair, global head of Aladdin.
