TRG Screen acquires Jordan & Jordan’s market data compliance & reporting unit

New York-based market data cost and inventory management software vendor TRG Screen has acquired the Market Data Reporting (MDR) data compliance and reporting tool—plus its clients and associated staff members—from data and management consultancy Jordan & Jordan for an undisclosed sum.

The deal closed in mid-February. A “handful” of J&J staff have already begun working directly for TRG, and the vendors’ technical staff are already working on integrating MDR with TRG’s existing Axon Declaration Service (ADS), which also provides data reporting for exchange and vendor data. Both run as cloud-based managed services, so the companies are already integrating their cloud environments, and over the next couple of weeks will come up with a detailed plan to integrate the best features of each service, says J&J CEO Tom Jordan.

“There are some areas where MDR is more advanced, and others where ADS is more advanced, so we will take those to create a best-of-breed service. For example, we really like MDR’s self-service customer portal, so we will try to leverage that across the existing ADS customer base,” says TRG CEO Steve Matthews. “We have an existing business in a very similar space, with an existing team. So we are adding some resources from J&J to manage those existing J&J client relationships, as well as to provide technical expertise on the J&J platform.”

The companies have worked closely together for many years, with TRG referring clients to J&J’s consulting services, and J&J directing clients to TRG’s software where suitable. Matthews says he has known Jordan personally for more than a decade, and describes how the two would regularly meet at Harry’s bar in downtown Manhattan to discuss common challenges and throw around ideas.

“We had one competitor in this space, and that was J&J,” Matthews says. “We’ve always had a great relationship, and we’ve partnered where we could, but it got to a point where there was a clear opportunity to combine these assets.”

J&J launched MDR six years ago to help clients—including global investment banks, hedge funds, and technology vendors that provide data as part of their solutions and hence are subject to reporting requirements—automate data usage reporting to exchanges and data vendors, using the specific report types required by each data source, to ensure compliance with data licenses and identify potential cost savings. At launch, MDR contained 20 report types. Now it has more than 80, Jordan says.

Now, with between 10 and 20 clients—the companies decline to say exactly how many, though they say some are already mutual clients of TRG for other services—and other new potential clients in the pipeline, J&J faced a choice: To grow the MDR business line further, it would need to either develop integrations to other third-party software tools, such as inventory platforms, or build its own. The alternative was, rather than spend time and money building out services that would duplicate those of TRG, to hand over the business and its clients to its friendly rival.

“We’ve acquired the software, clients, and certain individuals to provide continued support. J&J stays in the consulting space, and we will continue to partner with them. It requires very deep expertise to provide consulting services in these complex areas, especially the exchange world,” Matthews says.

J&J retains its market data consulting organization, and will continue to partner with TRG on consulting opportunities, as well as supporting the transition of MDR to TRG. J&J also still operates a regulatory reporting solution accompanied by a staff of consultants. Jordan says J&J has no plans to divest other business lines. “We do a lot of work around exchange compliance and licensing, and expect to continue to grow that business,” Jordan says.