Euromoney Institutional Investor is to acquire the online financial data provider Arete Consulting.

Euromoney Institutional Investor is to acquire the online financial data provider Arete Consulting.

The deal is for an undisclosed performance-related sum and will be financed from Euromoney’s existing borrowing facility.

Arete is a global financial data and news provider. Its database contains information on over 1.3 million financial products across 33 countries and is used by customers including investment banks and regulators.

The company was founded in 2001 by managing director and principal shareholder Robert Benson, who was formerly global head of structured products at HSBC. Benson will remain with the business until at least the end of June 2011. Arete has operations in London, New York and Hong Kong and has 37 full-time staff. As of February 2010 Arete had gross assets of £1.1 million and net liabilities of £183,000.

London-based Euromoney is an international publishing, events and electronic information group. In 2009 the company declared a pre tax loss of £17.4 million on a turnover of £317.6 million.

The acquisition is in line with Euromoney’s stated aim of investing in high growth online subscription data businesses.

Padraic Fallon, chairman of Euromoney, comments: ‘We look forward to helping this high-quality subscription data business to grow and to develop additional sources of revenue. This acquisition fits our strategy perfectly.’