London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has struck a $3.535bn all-cash agreement to buy Octus, the New York-based credit intelligence, data and workflow specialist, in a move that extends its reach deep into private and illiquid credit.
The sellers are funds advised by Permira, together with Octus’ management team, which includes founder Kent Collier.
LSEG intends to pair Octus’ capabilities with its own fixed income data, analytics and distribution, giving customers a combined set of tools to originate deals, evaluate risk and oversee portfolios across both public and private credit from a single platform.
The deal fills a notable gap. LSEG already holds a strong position in liquid credit through IFR news, evaluated pricing, corporate actions, and the Yield Book and LPC analytics businesses.
Octus adds expertise in illiquid and private credit, along with a large base of buy-side clients, especially hedge funds and alternative asset managers, a segment where LSEG has traditionally had limited penetration.
Taken together with Tradeweb’s planned purchase of Trumid, the transaction positions LSEG as an end-to-end provider serving every stage of the credit lifecycle.
Market dynamics underpin the rationale. Public and private credit are increasingly overlapping, and private credit has expanded to an estimated $3.5 trillion.
The addressable market for private markets data, workflow and access solutions is put at $7bn to $9bn, with double-digit growth anticipated as private markets assets under management rise and clients seek more timely, predictive and proprietary intelligence on less liquid assets.
LSEG expects both near-term and longer-term synergies. These include selling Octus’ products through LSEG’s worldwide footprint, offering LSEG tools to Octus’ credit-focused clientele, and building new products that blend Octus content with Workspace, LPC, Yield Book, PRS and Tradeweb. The aim is to give users a unified data structure, valuation approach and portfolio management capability across a fragmented market.
Established by Kent Collier in 2013, Octus supplies intelligence, data and analytics covering private, illiquid and distressed credit. The firm employs more than 900 people and serves 750 customers and over 40,000 individual users, spanning buy-side firms, investment banks, law firms and advisers. Its teams gather hard-to-obtain documentation such as covenants and deal terms and convert it into structured, searchable data, which feeds into dedicated workflow and portfolio tools. Clients can access this through the Octus platform, an MCP connector or AI workflows.
Once the deal closes, Octus will sit within LSEG’s Data & Analytics division. Collier will continue to lead the business, reporting to Gianluca Biagini and Ron Lefferts, co-heads of data & analytics.
LSEG CEO David Schwimmer said, “Combining Octus’ leading proprietary data and intelligence with LSEG’s data and analytics business creates a powerful offering for our customers, and further accelerates our growth. Acquiring Octus enables LSEG to deliver best-in-class credit data, intelligence and workflows, across the liquidity spectrum, to a broader range of customers.
“LSEG’s existing data and analytics capabilities, alongside the acquisition of Trumid announced by Tradeweb and now the acquisition of Octus, position LSEG as a global leader in fixed income to partner with our customers throughout the trade lifecycle. I look forward to partnering with Kent and the team at Octus to continue to drive future growth.”
Octus CEO Kent Collier added, “I’m excited by the prospect and opportunity of Octus becoming part of LSEG. Octus’ customer-first mindset and drive to deliver the absolute best products to our clients is a natural cultural fit with LSEG. Joining LSEG will pair our data, intelligence and workflows with global distribution and fixed income depth: a combination that provides tremendous opportunity for further growth and expansion.”
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