Simpson Thacher, TW advise on $250m buyout of UK markets data business

Simpson Thacher and Taylor Wessing have landed lead roles on Nordic Capital’s acquisition of capital markets data provider BMLL - in a deal which reportedly values the London-based company at $250 million.

The transaction sees Stockholm-based buyout house Nordic acquire a majority stake in BMLL, alongside existing minority shareholder Optiver, a Dutch trading firm. It’s the latest in a wave of deals for London-based market data providers.

Behind the deal

Founded in 2014 out of the University of Cambridge’s machine learning labs, BMLL cleans and standardises raw trading data from more than 120 global exchanges, providing analytics used by asset managers, banks, hedge funds and exchanges.

Nordic Capital’s investment includes fresh capital to expand BMLL’s global footprint and extend its multi-asset coverage.

BMLL’s current management team will continue to run the business and remain as shareholders.

Bigger picture

The move adds to a surge of activity in the UK’s market data and analytics space.

Earlier this month, S&P Global agreed to acquire London-based private markets data provider With Intelligence for $1.8 billion, in a deal that enlisted Clifford Chance and Proskauer.

That followed the completion of BlackRock’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Preqin in March - another major London-based data provider in the private markets space. Skadden and Macfarlanes led on that one.

Advising

Simpson Thacher advised Nordic Capital on the deal, with a team including corporate partners James Howe, Christopher Vallance, James Campisi and tax partner Caleb McConnell.

Taylor Wessing acted for BMLL. A team led by venture capital partner Howard Palmer and corporate partner Richard Faichney advised the company, with assistance from incentives partner Ann Casey and tax partner Graham Samuel-Gibbon.

A team led by the firm’s global co-head of corporate, Emma Danks, advised the management team, with help from tax partner James Ross.

Taylor Wessing is a long-standing adviser to BMLL, having also acted on its $21 million funding round this time last year, as well as investment rounds in 2022 and 2023.