Merrill Lynch has struck a deal to sell its 20% share of Bloomberg back to the news and financial data firm’s corporate parent for an estimated US$4.5 billion. The bank is expected to announce significant second quarter losses today of around US$6 billion, its fourth straight quarterly loss since last year’s credit crunch.

The sale would help the Wall Street investment bank to raise capital to offset these write-downs, which could represent a loss of US$1.94 per share, according to Reuters estimates.

Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg, who currently holds 68% of the shares in the firm, is said to have approved the decision.

The owners of the SWX Group, SIS Group and Telekurs Group have unanimously approved the merger of the three companies (Reference Data Review, May 2007). Within the framework of the planned transaction, the business activities of the Swiss financial market infrastructure providers will be combined under the roof of a strategic holding entity. The objective of the merger is to enhance efficiency and innovativeness as well as to strengthen the competitiveness of the Swiss financial centre. This new corporate structure will be established at the start of 2008, subject to approval of the transaction by the Competition Commission. The new enterprise will operate under the name Swiss Financial Market Services.

One hundred percent of the 58 financial technology managers surveyed across 22 international banks said their corporate clients were aware of the STP rate between their back office and the bank, and that over half of them were actively working to improve this rate, in a recent poll taken by software house Fundtech. The interest in outsourcing has grown with 55 percent of respondents saying their institution is more interested this year than last. And 69 percent said their IT budgets would grow in 2005.

In the June issue of Reference Data Review, we incorrectly stated that Asset Control has entered a deal to carry data from Telekurs’, Standard & Poor’s and Dun & Bradstreet’s joint Crosswalk initiative. Asset Control has stated an interest in this data but a deal has not yet been secured.

Morgan Stanley plans to acquire Berkeley, Calif.-based risk modeling vendor Barra Inc. and merge it into its Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) index business. Morgan Stanley will pay $41 per share in the cash deal. MSCI, well known in Europe and especially Asia, recently turned its attentions to the U.S. marketplace, where it is seeking to expand in a marketplace dominated by the Russell and Standard & Poor’s index businesses.

As Reference Data Review went to press, Interactive Data Corp., the main U.S. operating entity of Financial Times Interactive Data, reported fourth- quarter revenues of $120.4 million, up 24.8% from a year earlier. Net income rose 6.9% to $18.2 million from $17.0 million. For full year 2003, revenues increased by 18.0% to $442.7 million and net rose by 18.9% to $72.2 million.

As Reference Data Review went to press, Standard & Poor’s Cusip Service Bureau announced that it was teaming up with Mark-it Partners to develop a numbering system for its entity database, Project Red. The S&P Cusip Service Bureau has created two sets of alphanumeric codes, covering credit default swap reference entities and pairs of reference entities and reference obligations. The codes are aimed at providing an easy method of identifying entities and obligations in default swap trade confirmations. Meanwhile, S&P also announced plans for a bond reference data service, to be launched mid-2004. The new, real-time service is aimed at supporting the industry’s Real Time Trade Match (RTTM) initiative.