• Motive value creation sought to accelerate analytics pivot
• M&A built hedge fund client, deal sourcing capabilities
• Routine meeting with S&P led to proprietary deal phase

In an era of lengthening private equity hold periods, Motive Partners’ exit from With Intelligence after barely more than two years stands out.

After acquiring a majority stake in the UK-based financial data and intelligence provider in July 2023 from Intermediate Capital Group (ICG), the fintech-focused investor sold to S&P Global in a USD 1.8bn deal last month.

An early exit was not always part of the plan but quickly took shape following a carefully executed value creation plan, Rob Heyvaert, Motive’s founder and managing partner, told Mergermarket.

With Intelligence’s accelerated development drew the attention of S&P, one of Motive’s key industry partners, Heyvaert said. The business “already had a robust proprietary data set,” he added. “We doubled down on that and further activated our value creation plan and executed the acquisition strategy.”

The sale of With Intelligence comes at a time of heightened interest in financial data providers, in particular private markets-focused offerings.

Last year, BlackRock acquired private markets data business Preqin for GBP 2.55bn, or approximately USD 3.2bn in cash. That deal was struck at a multiple of over 13x Preqin’s expected 2024 revenue, according to a BlackRock presentation, which noted that placed it in line with fintech and financial data comps. In another example, Morningstar acquired Leveraged Commentary & Data (LCD) from S&P Global in 2022 for an 11.5x revenue multiple, according to analytics by this new service.

UK-based With Intelligence is expected to generate around USD 130m in revenue this year, according to a press release. This would imply a deal multiple above Preqin’s multiple, around 13.8x its expected 2025 revenue.

Moreover, Motive’s entry came at an estimated deal value of USD 451m, according to Mergermarket data. The USD 1.8bn exit deal value implies close to a 4x money multiple, albeit this does not take into account add-on or operational investments. Motive declined to comment on its return from the sale.

Strategic pivot

Nonetheless, an exit of this magnitude after a modest hold period required tight alignment with the portfolio company’s management and rigorous execution. Early on, Motive’s ambitions aligned closely with those of With Intelligence’s founder-CEO Charlie Kerr, who had established the company in 1998 as Pageant Media, a traditional B2B content provider.

Even before ICG’s investment in 2020, Kerr had begun transitioning the business from its B2B roots toward a data analytics-focused model, a strategic pivot that saw it rebrand as With Intelligence in 2021.

The arrival of Motive, a fintech specialist, accelerated that pivot. “From our perspective, what was exciting about Motive was their position in the ecosystem,” Kerr said. “We knew there were relationships and partnerships we could develop.”

Motive provided two operating partners, who played key roles in the execution of the value creation plan: Charles Teschner, former CEO of data and analytics solutions at BNY Mellon; and Andy Stewart, CEO of Wilshire. It also embedded other professionals into With Intelligence’s team.

Kerr credits these moves with helping advance the company’s strategic pivot. “They’ve brought a different level of operating and a different mindset that is much more software and data analytics-oriented,” he said.

Before Motive invested, With Intelligence had begun to develop a proprietary dataset around LP intentions and preferences, collecting information from attendees at its industry events. Motive helped to optimize the capture of this data and build a model around it, which became a focus area for the value creation plan.

“You need to spend 80% of your time and resources getting the 20% of content that’s unique,” said Kerr, emphasizing the importance of having a proprietary dataset, especially as AI makes access to publicly available data easier and faster.

Add-on acquisitions were also central to the strategy. In 2023, With Intelligence bought UK-based FolioMetrics, which provides CRM and research management solutions to hedge funds and other firms. A year later it bought Sutton Place Strategies (SPS), a data and analytics provider to M&A and PE professionals, from Bain & Company. This acquisition saw With Intelligence expand into deal-sourcing, a strategic move on which it doubled down a year later with the acquisition of M&A content platform The Deal from Delinian in early 2025. A further acquisition came with real assets specialist Realfin.

Folio, SPS and The Deal “were three really good deals and Motive strongly supported us in doing them,” said Kerr.

Even as With Intelligence’s private markets offering grew, when Motive went into a regular meeting with S&P Global earlier this year, its intention was not to pitch the business, according to Heyvaert.

Motive regularly undertakes such conversations, giving the New York-based investment firm insight into how strategic players see the market. In this instance, what began as a routine dialogue between the fintech investor and one of its key industry partners quickly evolved into the outline of a deal.

“It’s that intimate knowledge and operational focus that led us to the success of this deal,” Heyvaert said. “It was clear that bringing With Intelligence into S&P would create powerful market opportunities.”

Motive was well aware of S&P’s ambition to grow its private markets data capabilities to complement products such as Capital IQ. On the company’s 3Q25 earnings call, S&P executives made clear their ambition to become a leading data provider for private market participants, and said the With Intelligence acquisition would advance these goals.

The spontaneous nature of the talks meant that there was no need to hold a broader process, just as Motive’s investment in With Intelligence in 2023 had also bypassed a formal auction. Similarly, Motive also did not run a formal process for its exit of Global Shares to JPMorgan in 2022, Heyvaert noted.

For a proprietary deal to succeed, the acquirer needs to have conviction that the target meets all its criteria, while the latter must trust in the buyer’s ability to scale the business, Heyvaert added.

“There are many intangibles – such as cultural fit – so this was a thoughtfully laid out journey, and finding the right home was very important,” he explained.

Once a deal was in motion, Centerview Partners came onboard to advise With Intelligence, with which it had a prior relationship and experience in data-centric deals. S&P was advised by Citi and Jefferies.

Looking ahead

Motive has no immediate plans to re-enter the financial data and intelligence space following this exit. Still, it sees long-term opportunities in the segment, including capital markets data providers and private markets-focused offerings.

“Over time the need for standardization and transparency in private markets holistically is so significant that there will be opportunities for us to keep playing in the space,” Heyvaert explained.

Beyond the explosion in demand for private markets data, AI is also reshaping the sector. Heyvaert views AI as a tailwind for sector players, especially those with their own proprietary data.

“You will be pushed to be more creative in how you use a set of data and how you understand it,” he argued. “The entrepreneurial dimension of using AI in proprietary data is alive and well.”