Xinhua Finance (TSE Mothers: 9399), China's premier financial services and media company, today announced that Mergent, Inc., its fully owned subsidiary, has expanded its product offering with the launch of a new service designed to deliver critical data to the rapidly growing hedge fund market.
Mergent, a leading provider of global corporate and financial information, has been serving the financial industry since 1900 and was acquired by Xinhua Finance in June 2004. Mergent has created the new program to allow hedge funds to easily access to timely, transparent and accurate data to help them maximize returns for any specific degree of risk.
Key elements of the new initiative are Mergent's BondSource(TM) and EventsData(TM) information services that will put the most accurate, timely and easily accessible financial data in the industry on the desks of hedge fund portfolio managers, analysts, traders and back office personnel.
"Mergent has been a leader in developing innovative tools for the financial services industry. The new products will further build on the wide variety of business and financial products our company provides, from online corporate events data and bond pricing to transparent access to standardized equity information and common stock handbooks," stated Jonathan Worrall, CEO of Mergent, Inc.
BondSource(TM): A Single Point of Access
BondSource(TM) offers a single point of access for comprehensive fixed income data and evaluation services. Using BondSource(TM), hedge fund professionals can identify investment opportunities, assess portfolio candidates, create targeted bond portfolios and stay informed on current developments in the marketplace.
Covering over 160,000 taxable bonds and over 1,200,000 municipal securities, BondSource(TM) provides the industry's most authoritative bond information available anywhere -- with one of the most expansive and accessible databases ever built -- for corporates and municipals, encompassing both investment-grade and high-yield bonds.
EventsData(TM) Delivers Global Corporate Actions and Events
Mergent's EventsData(TM) is a state-of-the-art, web-based service that provides users with comprehensive global information on corporate events and actions. It combines Mergent's multiple financial databases into a unified data delivery system that keeps users informed throughout the day about important corporate events and actions as they occur. This authoritative, first source information is also available via intraday data feed. Corporate actions covered by EventsData(TM) include mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, securities listings and delistings, EPS updates, liquidations, stock splits and reverse stock splits, spin-offs, redemptions, reorganizations, ticker symbol changes and a lot more.
EventsData(TM) also incorporates the Historical Securities Database (HSD) - the 30-year database of end-of-day equities pricing that is considered to be the "gold standard" in the industry. Mergent acquired HSD from Capco Reference Data Services, Inc. last August.
"With demands for timely, transparent and accurate data constantly increasing, we at Mergent are continually enhancing BondSource(TM), EventsData(TM) and other services for hedge funds and financial institutions," noted Jonathan Worrall, Mergent's CEO. "As the market continues to develop, Mergent will be there to provide the required information."
"Xinhua Finance acquired Mergent, Inc. in June 2004 because we recognized the company's incomparable ability to provide investors and money managers with the tools and resources necessary to make highly informed investment decisions. Today's announcement exemplifies Mergent's keen understanding of its clients' needs and the needs of the global financial community," concluded Fredy Bush, vice chairman and CEO of Xinhua Finance.