Octus agrees a $3.535 billion all-cash sale to LSEG
Octus has agreed a $3.535 billion cash sale to LSEG. Nine days earlier the talks were still unsigned, and the price barely moved. Close is aimed at 2027.
Octus has a signed buyer. London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) said on October 22, 2026 that it has agreed to acquire the New York credit-intelligence firm for $3.535 billion in cash from funds advised by Permira and from Octus management, including founder Kent Collier. Having covered LSEG's data build-out since the Refinitiv agreement, the useful fact is how little the number moved.
On October 13, LSEG said talks were under way at approximately $3.5 billion and that no agreement existed. Nine days later the signed price is $3.535 billion, $35 million, or 1%, above that round indication. There is now an agreement, financed with external debt, and LSEG expects to close in the first half of 2027 if regulators approve.
LSEG did not publish a takeover multiple. On the revenue floor in the same announcement, $3.535 billion is under 11.8 times expected 2026 revenue.
LSEG said Octus should generate over $300 million in 2026, with strong double-digit growth and an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin of around 40%. Permira, owner since 2022, said annual recurring revenue (ARR) more than tripled in roughly four years. Reuters called it LSEG's largest deal since the $27 billion Refinitiv purchase in 2019.
Octus is document-level credit, not a price feed. Founded in 2013 and based in New York, it has more than 900 employees, 750 customers and more than 40,000 individual users at buy-side firms, banks, law firms and advisers. Clients connect on the Octus platform, through a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector, or through artificial-intelligence workflows.
That is the illiquid end of a stack LSEG already sells in liquid credit through IFR, evaluated pricing, Yield Book and LPC. LSEG says hedge funds and alternative managers have been the thin spot.
Two credit cheques, one week
The same morning's third-quarter update put a trading deal beside this one. Tradeweb, LSEG said, had agreed earlier in the week to buy electronic credit venue Trumid for a net price of about $1.75 billion. With Octus, the two published prices come to roughly $5.3 billion.
LSEG expects Octus to lift Data & Analytics organic revenue growth at once and to add to guidance for group organic subscription revenue growth of around 7% in 2027. Underlying EBITDA margin guidance, a cumulative rise of about 150 basis points from 2027 to 2029, stays put.
Adjusted earnings per share should be neutral in the first full year after completion, then accretive. External debt funds the deal. After both acquisitions, LSEG expects leverage near the top of its 1.5 to 2.5 times range at the end of 2027, then back toward the middle by the end of 2028.
No counterbid, one product reply
No rival credit-data firm tabled an offer. S&P Global, the same day, widened artificial-intelligence tools for private markets, including an iLEVEL agent and an MCP server, and did not mention Octus. FactSet, which has been buying specialist datasets, had no Octus statement in the day's coverage. Reuters reported that Elliott did not immediately comment, and that Citi analysts saw a strong rationale and supportive financials.
LSEG names no competition authority. Permira says closing still needs customary regulatory approval.
"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," said David Schwimmer, chief executive of LSEG.
"Joining LSEG will pair our data, intelligence and workflows with global distribution and fixed income depth," said Kent Collier, founder and chief executive of Octus.
Permira said 2026 work so far includes more than four million automated classifications and one million structured extractions. Daniel Brenhouse, partner and co-head of services at Permira, and Andrew Young, a technology partner, said they had backed "a market-leading credit franchise with trusted, proprietary content." Morgan Stanley is lead adviser to LSEG, alongside Barclays. Evercore and Goldman Sachs advise Octus's shareholders.
Collier keeps running Octus inside Data & Analytics, reporting to Gianluca Biagini and Ron Lefferts. The Quantile agreement was a narrow post-trade tool. This one is aimed at the credit document, the same gap State Street chased with private-markets technology. More than two-thirds of LSEG's top 50 Data & Analytics customers, the group said, have already connected to its MCP servers.
If approval slips past the first half of 2027, earnings neutrality slips too, because that clock starts at closing. Data & Analytics grew 5.2% in the third quarter on LSEG's constant-currency count, before Octus is included. Covenant data has to lift that rate through Workspace, Tradeweb and Trumid without reopening the margin path. LSEG put private credit at an estimated $3.5 trillion, and the price holds only if those documents stay hard for a model to copy.
Reporting by Rick Steves. Filed 23 October 2026, 11:17 GMT.
Senior Reporter, Regulation and Fintech
Rick Steves has seen business and economics through many lenses. He joined the financial services industry in 2009, and has been a financial journalist since 2011.
