Morningstar Acquires Hedge Fund, SMA Databases

Fund tracker Morningstar announced plans to double its hedge fund coverage and significantly increase coverage of separately managed accounts through the acquisition of databases from InvestorForce  of Wayne, Pa.

The $10 million acquisition includes information of on 450 InvestorForce institutional clients, and is expected to be  complete in August.

"InvestorForce is a pioneer in establishing some of the largest, most robust, hedge fund and separate account databases in the industry, as well as developing sophisticated analytics and reporting features," said Joe Mansueto, chairman and chief executive of Morningstar. "This acquisition will strengthen our institutional presence by increasing our global client base, significantly expanding our hedge fund and separate accounting databases, and enhancing our software tools."

Through the deal, InvestorForce will license Morningstar's hedge fund, mutual fund and separate account data for InvestorForce's web-based platform, through which advisors report their performance data.

Besides doubling the number of hedge funds Morningstar covers to 6,000, the acquisition will add 1,500 separate accounts to the Chicago-based company's database.

"This transaction will enable us to focus our resources on the continued growth of our enterprise platform while leveraging Morningstar's expansive data to enhance our product offering," said InvestorForce President and Chief Executive Jim Morrissey.

"Our goal is to bring transparency to hedge funds and separate accounts in much the same way we did for mutual funds more than 20 years ago," Mansueto said.