M&A in the BV Data Market

By Eva Lang

Business appraisers were among the first users of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR database of electronic public company filings went it was introduced in the mid-1990s. Not surprisingly, a number of vendors stepped up to offer value-added features to increase the searching and output options of the relatively bare-bones free database from the SEC. One of those companies was 10-K Wizard. It became popular with business appraisers because of the flexibility of full text searching, access to pre-EDGAR filings, and other features offered for a reasonable price.

On December 4, 2008, Morningstar, Inc., a provider of independent investment research best known to business appraisers for having acquired Ibbotson, announced its acquisition of 10K-Wizard Technology LLC. The press release on this deal revealed a few nuggets about the acquisition. Morningstar is paying $12.5 million for the accounts represented by 30,000 licensed 10-K Wizard users. 10-K Wizard is a privately held company located in Dallas with 25 employees.

Adding 10-K Wizard to its stable of products that already includes Ibbotson equity data, increases the presence of Morningstar in the BV data market.