Markit Group Limited. is a global financial

Finance

"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

 information services company with over 2,300 employees. The company provides independent data

Financial data vendor

A financial data vendor provides data to financial firms, traders, and investors. The data distributed is collected from sources such as a stock exchange feeds, brokers and dealer desks or regulatory filings .- Background :...

, valuations

Valuation (finance)

In finance, valuation is the process of estimating what something is worth. Items that are usually valued are a financial asset or liability. Valuations can be done on assets or on liabilities...

 and trade processing

Clearing (finance)

In banking and finance, clearing denotes all activities from the time a commitment is made for a transaction until it is settled. Clearing is necessary because the speed of trades is much faster than the cycle time for completing the underlying transaction....

 across all asset

Asset

In financial accounting, assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset...

 classes in order to enhance transparency

Corporate transparency

Corporate transparency is set of information, privacy, and business policies to improve corporate decisionmaking and operations openness to employees, stakeholders, shareholders and the general public. Standard & Poor's has included a definition of corporate transparency in its aimed at analysis...

, reduce risk

Risk

Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss . The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists . Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks"...

 and improve operational efficiency. Its client base includes significant institutional participants

Financial institution

In financial economics, a financial institution is an institution that provides financial services for its clients or members. Probably the most important financial service provided by financial institutions is acting as financial intermediaries...

 in the financial marketplace.

Markit is headquartered in London

More London

More London is a new development on the south bank of the River Thames, immediately south-west of Tower Bridge in London. The southern exit is on Tooley Street....

. Other Markit offices include New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Dallas, Boulder

Boulder, Colorado

Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

, Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Frankfurt/Main

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

, Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

 and Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

.

History

Markit was founded in 2001 to provide daily credit default swap

Credit default swap

A credit default swap is similar to a traditional insurance policy, in as much as it obliges the seller of the CDS to compensate the buyer in the event of loan default...

 (CDS) pricing.

Mark-It Partners (as it was called in its early days) acquired LoanX, Inc., a leading US provider of syndicated loan data, in December 2003.

In May 2004 Mark-It bought Totem Valuations, a supplier of consensus valuations.

In January 2006 Markit launched the first asset-backed securities index

Asset-backed securities index

The ABX is a credit derivative swap contract that pools lists of exposures to mortgage backed securities.In January 2006, CDS Indexco and Markit launched ABX.HE, a subprime mortgage backed credit derivative index, with plans to extend the index to underlying asset types other than home equity loans...

, ABX.HE. In May 2006 Markit bought Communicator Inc from White Plains, New York

White Plains, New York

White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

, a financial information technology company. In August 2006 Markit acquired Chasen Enterprises, provider of structured securities

Structured product

In finance, a structured product, also known as a market linked investment, is generally a pre-packaged investment strategy based on derivatives, such as a single security, a basket of securities, options, indices, commodities, debt issuance and/or foreign currencies, and to a lesser extent, swaps...

 modelling. In September 2006 Markit bought Amsterdam-based MarketXS, a financial data distribution and trading solution provider.

Markit's credit derivative

Credit derivative

In finance, a credit derivative is a securitized derivative whose value is derived from the credit risk on an underlying bond, loan or any other financial asset. In this way, the credit risk is on an entity other than the counterparties to the transaction itself...

 data became especially sought after since the start of the subprime mortgage crisis

Subprime mortgage crisis

The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was one of the first indicators of the late-2000s financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, and the resulting decline of securities backed by said mortgages....

 in 2007.

In November 2007 Markit acquired the owners of the iTraxx

Itraxx

iTraxx is the brand name for the family of credit default swap index products covering regions of Europe, Australia, Japan and non-Japan Asia. They form a large sector of the overall credit derivative market. The indices are constructed on a set of rules with the overriding criterion being that of...

 and CDX credit default swap index

Credit Default Swap Index

A credit default swap index is a credit derivative used to hedge credit risk or to take a position on a basket of credit entities. Unlike a credit default swap, which is an over the counter credit derivative, a credit default swap index is a completely standardised credit security and may...

es, International Index Company (IIC) and CDS Index Company (CDSIndexCo). In December 2007 Markit announced the acquisition of SwapsWire, an electronic trade confirmation network, which was completed in May 2008.

In January 2008 Markit acquired the Boat MiFID

MiFID

The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive as subsequently amended is a European Union law that provides harmonised regulation for investment services across the 30 member states of the European Economic Area...

-compliant trade reporting platform from a consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

 of nine investment banks.
In April 2008 the company bought NTC Economics, a provider of global macro-economic

Macroeconomics

Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of the whole economy. This includes a national, regional, or global economy...

 indicators and owner of the widely-referenced Purchasing Managers Index

Purchasing Managers Index

The Purchasing Managers' Index is an indicator produced by Markit Group and the Institute for Supply Management of financial activity reflecting purchasing managers' acquisition of goods and services...

 (PMI) series.
In July 2008 Markit acquired JPMorgan Chase's FCS Corporation, a provider of syndicated loan market portfolio and risk management software and services, including the Wall Street Office family of products.

In September 2009 Markit and Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) launched MarkitSERV, a joint venture

Joint venture

A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

 to provide over-the-counter (OTC)

Over-the-counter (finance)

Within the derivatives markets, many products are traded through exchanges. An exchange has the benefit of facilitating liquidity and also mitigates all credit risk concerning the default of a member of the exchange. Products traded on the exchange must be well standardised to transparent trading....

 derivative

Derivative (finance)

A derivative instrument is a contract between two parties that specifies conditions—in particular, dates and the resulting values of the underlying variables—under which payments, or payoffs, are to be made between the parties.Under U.S...

 trade processing.
In October 2009 Markit acquired electronic loan

Loan

A loan is a type of debt. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the lender and the borrower....

-trade-processing platform ClearPar from Fidelity Information Services

Fidelity National Financial

Fidelity National Financial , headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, USA , is a Fortune 500 company that provides real estate and financial services...

, announcing to work with DTCC to improve the processing of syndicated loan

Syndicated loan

A syndicated loan is one that is provided by a group of lenders and is structured, arranged, and administered by one or several commercial banks or investment banks known as arrangers....

s.

In June 2010 Markit acquired Boulder, Colorado

Boulder, Colorado

Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

-based Wall Street on Demand (WSOD), which provides financial data visualization services.

In January of 2011 Markit acquired the risk analytics firm QuIC Financial Technologies, Inc (QuIC). QuIC provides financial organisations with risk analytics solutions to test market and credit risk tolerance in financial portfolios and simulate risk at the enterprise level.

Products and services

• Markit Portfolio Valuations
• Markit BOAT
• Markit Bonds
• Markit CDS Pricing
• Markit Connex
• Markit Desktop
• Markit Distribution Platform
• Markit Dividend Forecasting
• Markit Document Exchange
• Markit Enhanced Feed
• Markit Environmental Registry
• Markit Hub
• Markit iBoxx Indices
• Markit Index Management
• Markit Loans
• Markit MSA
• Markit PBWire
• Markit PortRec
• Markit Quotes
• Markit Solutions
• Markit Tie-Outs
• Markit TOTEM
• Markit Trade Manager
• Markit Trade Processing
• Markit Wire
• Markit Structured Finance
• Markit WSO
• Markit Valuations Manager
• Markit Research Manager