French low latency trading specialist QuantHouse has been bought by McGraw-Hill as the U.S. media company looks to build its presence in the financial data provider space.

QuantHouse will deliver high-speed data for S&P Capital IQ, the division of McGraw-Hill that provides analysis and data to banks, institutional investors and hedge funds around the world.

Founded in 2005, QuantHouse, provides end-to-end trading systems—including ultra-low-latency market data technologies, algorithmic trading frameworks, proximity hosting and order routing services—to hedge funds, market makers, proprietary desks and latency sensitive sell-side firms.

“The acquisition of QuantHouse will provide our clients with access to exchange pricing globally, including securities valuations and portfolio analytics, throughout all our desktop and enterprise solutions,” said Lou Eccleston, president of S&P Capital IQ and S&P Indices. “In addition, the extensive capabilities QuantHouse brings will enable S&P Capital IQ to build our own unique real-time monitors, derived data sets and analytics.


“QuantHouse will enable us to offer one integrated low-latency feed for all our data, including fundamental, fixed income, equity and derivatives.”

The latest move by S&P Capital IQ comes after it acquired Toronto-based R2 Financial Technologies, a provider of risk and scenario-based analytics for traders and other financial customers, in February.

McGraw-Hill, which also owns ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, wants to challenge market leaders Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters in the provision of market data and analysis.

With the increasing fragmentation of markets around the world, users want to be able to easily digest the vast amounts of data coming out of various venues. McGraw-Hill is hoping to use QuantHouse’s nanosecond technology to gain an edge on its rivals.

QuantHouse, which has its own high-speed fibre optic network linking Europe with the U.S., has 90 employees based in Paris, London and New York.

“We are very excited to be a part of S&P Capital IQ,” said Pierre-Francois Filet, chairman and co-founder of QuantHouse. “Together, we can focus on developing a new generation of alpha-generation tools, low-latency transaction infrastructure and integrated low-latency data feeds to maximize offerings and strengthen S&P Capital IQ’s competitive positioning.”