After taking over the Allfunds fund platform, Deutsche Börse has announced its next billion-dollar deal. Germany’s largest stock exchange operator is taking over the data and index provider EAT Stoxx completely for 1.1 billion euros, as the company announced. Deutsche Börse already holds 80 percent of the shares in ISS Stoxx and will therefore take over the remaining 20 percent from the financial investor General Atlantic.
The takeover is intended to accelerate the growth of Deutsche Börse, which last year with a Profit of 2.1 billion euros reported the best result in its history. ISS Stoxx offers, among other things, stock market indices that providers of index funds (ETFs) use as a guide, as well as analyzes and recommendations for large investors when voting at general meetings.
Through the Boom in ETF savings plans For private investors, ISS Stoxx is important for Deutsche Börse: “45 percent of European ETF growth was based on our Stoxx indices,” said CEO Stephan Leithner when presenting the annual figures in Frankfurt.
ISS Stoxx is under pressure in the USA
With the takeover of the remaining shares in ISS Stoxx, Deutsche Börse announces its second billion-dollar deal within a few weeks. It was only in January that she announced that she wanted to buy the Allfunds fund platform for around 5.3 billion euros. The aim is to create a “European investment fund champion,” said Leithner.
ISS Stoxx is currently in the USA under pressure: US President Donald Trump sees the work of voting rights consultants like ISS as ideological interference in US companies. The asset manager of the bank JP Morgan recently ended its collaboration with such companies, and the state of Texas is taking legal action against sustainability and diversity rules (ESG) as a criterion for voting rights decisions. ISS Stoxx is also active in this area, for example in sustainability consulting.
According to its managing director, Deutsche Börse does not want to let this dissuade it from its takeover plans. ISS is working closely with the authorities in the USA, said Leithner. He is convinced that voting rights advice will remain important in the long term. General Atlantic’s exit from ISS Stoxx is scheduled to take effect at the end of March.
