Why S&P Global Is Acquiring 451 Research

By Noah Long • Dec 9, 2019
  • S&P Global, a provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, and analytics, announced it is buying 451 Research. These are the details about the deal.

S&P Global — the provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, and analytics in the global capital and commodity markets — announced that it is acquiring 451 Research, LLC, a privately-held research and advisory firm that provides intelligence, expertise, and data covering high-growth emerging technology segments. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.

Going forward, 451 Research will be operated within S&P Global Market Intelligence, which is the division that provides data, essential insights, and powerful analytics to help navigate the financial markets. And this acquisition will expand and strengthen S&P Global Market Intelligence’s research coverage, adding differentiated expertise and intelligence with comprehensive offerings in technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Information Security, Data Centers, Cloud and DevOps.

“As emerging technologies continue to remodel today’s business landscape and impact our decision-making, it’s important that we invest in and deepen our expertise in these growing sectors,” said Martina Cheung, President of S&P Global Market Intelligence. “451 Research’s comprehensive expertise in critical disruptive technologies will enable S&P Global Market Intelligence to further expand our sector relevant and differentiated data offerings while strengthening our ability to help our customers understand the digital transformation that’s impacting the market today.”

Before this transaction, 451 Research had been a part of The 451 Group. And led by McCarthy with support from financial partners MLR Holdings, 451 Research publishes over 3,000 reports and data sets annually and serves leading technology vendors and service providers, innovative start-ups, technology investment bankers, VCs, and other technology market consulting and professional service firms as well as “early adopter” enterprise companies for the past 18 years. Plus 451 Research’s staff are seasoned industry analysts and cover a variety of technology and industry segments including cloud computing, data center technologies, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“We are excited to have 451 Research join the renowned team at S&P Global Market Intelligence. For 20 years, 451 Research has been prized worldwide for its essential insight into innovation, disruption, and value creation in enterprise IT markets. The proven methodologies and constant tracking of enterprise IT customer sentiment assures that 451 Research clients can anticipate and deftly navigate the accelerating evolution of technology markets. As continuing CEO and Chairman of our Group’s Uptime Institute, I look forward now, as a client of 451 Research, to benefiting from an expanding array of insight and unique analytic offerings that 451 Research creates within the larger S&P Global Market Intelligence, that further serve both the financial and technology markets,” added Martin McCarthy, CEO and Chairman of The 451 Group.