Morningstar buys out Danish unit for $15.2M

(AP) — Investment research firm Morningstar Inc. said Thursday its European subsidiary will buy the rest of its Danish unit from Phosphorus A/S.

Morningstar Europe B/V will pay $15.2 million, plus a share of its first-half 2010 profit, for the 75 percent stake held by Phosphorus, a Danish company.

Morningstar Danmark, based in Copenhagen, was established in 2001. The company operates a website for individual investors, Morningstar.dk, which provides data on mutual funds and exchange traded funds, market analysis and other information.

The unit has 11 employees in Copenhagen. CEO Peter Meyer and Torben Bruun, chief operating officer, will continue to lead the company.

The deal is expected to close in July. It's the second acquisition in Europe in a month for Morningstar, which is based in Chicago. The firm announced a deal to buy Seeds Group, an investment counseling service based in Paris, for an undisclosed amount on May 17.

Morningstar to acquire Paris-based research firm

(Crain) — Morningstar Inc. said Monday it has entered an agreement to buy Paris-based Seeds Group, a French company with 12 employees that provides investment consulting and fund research to institutional investors.

Chicago-based Morningstar and Seeds didn’t provide financial terms of the agreement. The two companies expect to complete the transaction in the next few months.

Morningstar has been buying up companies both in the U.S. and abroad to expand its services and geographic reach.

Most of the purchase prices over the past year were $52 million or less in cases where terms were disclosed.

So far this year, Morningstar has bought five companies, including Australian firm Aegis Equities Research and Horsham, Pa.-based structured finance research firm Realpoint LLC.

Seeds Group has about 30 clients and provides services to pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers, banks and brokerage firms. The firm specializes in asset liability management, manager selection and financial plan construction, among other areas.

Morningstar CEO and majority owner Joe Mansueto said in the release that Seed Group’s expertise in alternative investments will bolster Morningstar’s fund-of-funds investing.

Morningstar shares fell 20 cents to $47.64 in early trading.

Morningstar's UK buy continues shopping spree

(Reuters) — U.S. investment research firm Morningstar Inc. said it has paid $18.3 million to buy British rival Old Broad Street Research Ltd as it expands its reach abroad and into other business areas.

Chicago-based Morningstar said that London-based Old Broad Street Research, which provides fund research, ratings, and investment consulting services, will become one of its subsidiaries, called "OBSR, a Morningstar company."

OBSR's managing directors Richard Downs, Richard Romer-Lee, and Nigel Whittingham will continue to lead the business.

"Our acquisition of OBSR strengthens our research capabilities in one of our key global markets by complementing our existing fund research team in London, and supports one of our growth strategies, which is to continue building our thought leadership in investmentresearch," Don Phillips, president of fund research for Morningstar said in a statement.

For Morningstar the acquisition is the latest in a string of purchases this year.

In March the company announced plans to buy credit rating firm Realpoint LLC and in February Morningstar bought financial blogger Michelle Leder's Website Footnoted.org, which uncovers corporate news often buried in regulatory filings.

Morningstar buys research firm Realpoint for $52 million

(Crain's) — Morningstar Inc. has agreed to acquire credit research company Realpoint LLC for $52 million, including $42 million in cash and $10 million in restricted stock.

Morningstar plans to complete the purchase in the next few months, the Chicago-based investment research company said in a news release.

Realpoint, based in Horsham, Pa., provides structured finance ratings, research and data to about 225 institutional investors, including money managers who invest in commercial mortgage-backed securities. Combining with Morningstar will allow Realpoint to expand globally, CEO Robert Dobilas said.

Eventually, Realpoint will be rebranded under the Morningstar name.

“We believe there’s strong demand for unbiased ratings and research in the unstructured credit market, and we think the time is ripe to bring more competition to this market,” Morningstar CEO Joe Mansueto said in the release.

Morningstar entered the credit ratings business in December and now has ratings on 150 large U.S. companies, the company said.