Institutional Shareholder Services closes acquisition of Discovery Data

NEW YORK (December 9, 2021) -- Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”), a leading provider of corporate governance and responsible investment solutions, market intelligence, fund services, and events and editorial content for institutional investors and corporations, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Discovery Data Holdings, Inc., the holding company which owns Discovery Data, Inc., a globally recognized and trusted provider of data and analytics to the financial services industry. 

Based in New Jersey, Discovery Data’s platform empowers a growing set of more than 1,000 clients, including a wide range of asset and wealth management, insurance, financial technology, and other industry service providers to understand their target markets and to identify, assess, and seize new opportunities. Earlier this year, the firm announced a series of new capabilities, including diversity and inclusion data, behavioral intent models, MarketSage, an interactive data visualization platform, expanded API options, and partnerships with leading cloud data providers - all of which serves to differentiate Discovery Data’s breadth of intelligence solutions.
Discovery Data will become part of ISS’ Market Intelligence (ISS MI) business unit and continue to focus on the expansion of its product suite and client engagement. ISS MI provides critical data, insight, and workflow solutions to global asset managers, insurance companies and distributors.

“The response to this acquisition, from our respective organizations’ clients, stakeholders across the industry, and our own highly talented teams, has been extremely positive,” said Ben Doob, Head of ISS MI.  “With the acquisition complete, we are excited to now welcome the Discovery Data team and client base to ISS MI, and collectively we will be focused in the new year on accelerating the delivery of increasingly powerful products, services, and support.”
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP acted as legal advisor to ISS on the transaction.

To learn more about ISS MI, please click here, and about Discovery Data, please click here.

About ISS

Founded in 1985, Institutional Shareholder Services group of companies (ISS) empowers investors and companies to build for long-term and sustainable growth by providing high-quality data, analytics and insight. ISS, which is majority owned by Deutsche Börse Group, along with Genstar Capital and ISS management, is a leading provider of corporate governance and responsible investment solutions, market intelligence, fund services, and events and editorial content for institutional investors and corporations, globally. ISS operates on an arm’s-length basis and Deutsche Börse has adopted Principles protecting the independence and integrity of ISS’ research offerings. ISS’ 2,000 employees operate worldwide across more than 30 global offices in 15 countries. Its more than 4,000 clients include many of the world’s leading institutional investors who rely on ISS’ objective and impartial ESG and governance research, market intelligence and fund services and data and analytics, as well as public companies focused on ESG and governance risk mitigation as a shareholder value enhancing measure. Clients rely on ISS’ expertise to help them make informed investment decisions.