Permira has agreed to sell Octus, the credit data and intelligence provider, to London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in an all-cash deal valuing the business at $3.535bn. LSEG will pay the full consideration in cash to funds advised by Permira and to Octus management, including founder and chief executive Kent Collier. LSEG plans to finance the transaction with external debt. The agreement follows a week of speculation. On 13 October, LSEG confirmed it was in talks with Permira over a deal worth about $3.5bn, cautioning that "no final agreement has been reached and no transaction is guaranteed."
Permira first invested in Octus in August 2022, when the company was still called Reorg, buying the majority stake held by Warburg Pincus while management kept a significant shareholding. Founded in 2013, the business served more than 25,000 professionals across financial institutions, law firms, and advisory businesses. Under Permira's ownership, annual recurring revenue more than tripled and the number of products nearly doubled. Several add-on acquisitions, including Fin Dox, Sky Road, and Lev Pro, took its subscriber base beyond 40,000. LSEG expects Octus to generate more than $300m of revenue in 2026, with strong double-digit growth and an adjusted EBITDA margin of about 40%.
For Permira, the deal reflects collaboration between its sector teams. Octus was jointly overseen by its Services and Technology groups. So far this year, the platform has carried out more than four million automated classifications, one million structured data extractions, and more than 250,000 content summaries. Permira also says it has returned $13bn to investors over the past 12 months.
LSEG plans to combine Octus's content with its Workspace, LPC, Yield Book, and PRS products, as well as Tradeweb, and to sell Octus products across its global client base. Chief executive David Schwimmer said acquiring Octus enables LSEG to deliver best-in-class credit data, intelligence and workflows. The deal is expected to boost organic revenue growth in its Data & Analytics division immediately and be neutral to adjusted earnings per share in the first full year after completion. Completion is expected in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
Source: PE Insights · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing