S&P Capital IQ's Valuations Service Ranked Best Vendor For High Yield Bonds And US Municipals By European Financial Institutions

LONDON, March 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- S&P Capital IQ's Valuations service has been ranked best vendor for high yield bonds and US municipals in A-Team Group's 2012 Valuations Performance Benchmarking report. A-Team Group surveyed valuations managers across 36 Europe-based financial institutions – a mix of asset managers and the securities firms that support them – about what is driving the need for better valuations and how they manage valuations data. As part of the study, respondents were also asked to drill down into the performance of the ten key vendors that supply pricing and valuation data across fixed income asset classes. The respondents ranked S&P Capital IQ's Valuations service the top scoring vendor for high yield corporate bonds and US municipals, number two for investment grade corporate bonds, and in the top four for government/agency debt.

The study reveals that the attributes respondents consider most important for achieving valuations transparency, needed to meet regulatory requirements, are the number of contributors or data sources, followed by the range of attributes contributing to the valuation. "Financial Institutions increasingly need to conduct more timely and detailed valuation reviews, and expect increased transparency into the valuation and pricing processes," comments Peter Jones, Senior Director, Europe Pricing Content at S&P Capital IQ. "This includes insight into the underlying valuation inputs, and available pre- and post-trade price and quote data across the spectrum of asset classes."

S&P Capital IQ's Valuations service supports clients' needs by providing a cross-market approach to assessing risk and value in portfolios. Through continued investment in pre- and post-trade pricing data and through the acquisitions of Credit Market Analysis Ltd. (CMA), R ² Financial Technologies (R ²), and QuantHouse in 2012, the company has deepened its capabilities and broadened its asset class coverage. "S&P Capital IQ's valuation and data offering now combines pre-and post-trade pricing data, multi asset class valuation and robust financial engineering tools. Covering global fixed income securities and hard-to-price instruments using both market approach and model valuation methods, the service offers a full solution set," highlights Peter Jones. "Investors, traders, risk managers and operations teams look to S&P Capital IQ for timely and extensive reference data, valuation, pricing and security linkages across complex interconnected sets of data."

S&P Capital IQ continues to update and enhance its product offering, providing clients with flexible delivery channels, including an online platform, on-demand software, and data feeds. Product releases planned for the first quarter of 2013 include enhanced transparency features, allowing clients to compare bonds and pre- and post-trade data, as well as the introduction of a Market Activity Score, enabling a greater understanding of the depth of activity in pre-and post-trade price reports.

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