Bedford firm buys Dow Jones assets

November 25, 2009|Associated Press

BEDFORD - Interactive Data Corp., a Bedford-based provider of financial market data, said yesterday that it is buying certain online financial data operations from Dow Jones & Co. for $13.5 million.

Interactive Data sells real-time market data and other information to traders and financial institutions. It’s buying technologies from Dow Jones that provide online news, market data, research, advanced charting, portfolio management, and alerts.

Dow Jones will retain its news business and assets such as BigCharts.com, which was part of its acquisition of MarketWatch Inc. in 2005.

Interactive Data said the acquisition will boost its online financial data business, which gives financial institutions various features on their websites to let consumers look up stock prices, manage their portfolios, and get news about stocks they own.

The Dow Jones business being acquired has 200 institutional and other customers.

Interactive Data also agreed to redistribute news from MarketWatch to these institutions, which will make it available to their customers.

The acquisition is expected to boost cash flow this year and next, but won’t boost earnings until 2011. The deal is expected to close in several weeks.