By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Business information provider S&P Global Inc is set to secure conditional EU antitrust approval for its $44 billion takeover of IHS Markit Ltd, three people familiar with the matter said.
The deal to create a new data powerhouse was announced last November, reflecting consolidation in the financial information services sector as companies race to create one-stop shops to lure the biggest clients and invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
S&P managed to address the European Commission’s concerns with its offer to sell IHS’ U.S. Oil Pricing Agency Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) and PetroChem Wire businesses, the people said.
It struck the $1.15 billion deal with News Corp in August, subject to the closing of the IHS Markit acquisition.
The EU competition enforcer, which is scheduled to end its preliminary review of the IHS deal by Oct. 22, declined to comment. S&P Global and IHS declined to comment.
The UK competition agency is also investigating the deal and will decide by Oct. 19.
Thomson Reuters, parent of Reuters News, competes with Platts, Argus and OPIS in providing news and information to the oil markets.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Niket Nishant and Anirban Sen in Bangalore; editing by Edmund Blair and Jason Neely)
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