S&P Global completes $1.8 billion acquisition of With Intelligence private-markets data business
S&P Global completed its US$1.8 billion acquisition of With Intelligence, a private-markets data business, from a group led by Motive Partners on 27 November 2025, extending S&P's private markets coverage alongside Capital IQ Pro and iLEVEL.
Where the rake sits
From With Intelligence's seat the rake is realised once: US$1.8 billion in cash against roughly US$130 million of 2025 expected revenue, and the asset leaves permanently with no residual position for Motive Partners. From S&P Global's seat going forward the enrichment work — direct LP/GP sourcing, benchmarking, workflow — now sits inside the acquirer, so the rake on the ongoing subscription business is owned, not on loan.
What happened
- Deal first announced October 2025; completion announced 27 November 2025 at US$1.8 billion.
- Seller group was led by majority investor Motive Partners, which took a majority investment in With Intelligence in 2023, with ICG having initially invested alongside founder Charlie Kerr in 2020 and reinvesting alongside Motive Partners.
- With Intelligence sources proprietary fund data directly from LPs and GPs across hedge funds, PE, private credit, real estate, infrastructure and family offices, serving c. 3,000 global clients.
- Expected 2025 revenue around US$130 million with high-teens organic ACV growth.
- S&P Global CEO Martina Cheung framed the rationale as complementing existing capabilities in alternative investments across the investment lifecycle.
Who is involved
S&P Global provides credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity and automotive markets.
FY2024 revenue US$14.208B
With Intelligence is part of S&P Global, delivering end-to-end coverage across the alternatives marketplace.
$130m expected additional revenue in 2025
The reading
The deal is a cash acquisition of a data business; the enrichment work (direct sourcing from LPs/GPs via surveys and filings, platform, benchmarking, workflow integration) has been done by With Intelligence over years and now passes to S&P Global. Scope note: the deal was announced October 15, 2025 and completion was announced November 25, 2025, not October 20, 2026.
What S&P Global, the paying party, is buying is network-sourced coverage of ~3,000 LPs/GPs and advisors across alternatives that it could not replicate from secondary aggregation; the decision it feeds for S&P's own downstream customers is capital allocation and fundraising decisions in private markets.
The whole business - proprietary datasets, benchmarks, workflow solutions and the team - crossed; this is the cleanest form of sell under the author's rulings, with no residual asset retained by Motive Partners after close.
Not determinable; Motive paid £400M in 2023 and sold for $1.8B two years later, which the firm itself frames as a scarcity-value exit, but valuation ratios are not what the author measures under-capture against.
Why it matters
Motive Partners paid £400 million for With Intelligence in August 2023 and sold it to S&P Global for US$1.8 billion twenty-seven months later — roughly a 3.5x on a business whose substrate is survey responses from LPs and GPs. S&P is paying about 14x expected 2025 revenue of US$130 million for coverage that Capital IQ Pro could not assemble from filings; the price sets a public mark for what direct-sourced private-markets substrate is worth to a listed aggregator that needs it.
The argument this deal tests: Data monetisation: three routes to value creation
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Sources
- assetservicingtimes.com — primary
- investor.spglobal.com — party background
- withintelligence.com — party background
- fintechfutures.com — party background
- motivepartners.com — party background
Announced 2025-11-27