Derivative data provider Markit Group today announced it has acquired Chasen Enterprises, which offers modeling of structured securities, specifically agency and non-agency CMOs and ABS.
Kevin Gould, executive vice president at Markit, said in a release, "The acquisition of Chasen demonstrates Markit's commitment to support the structured finance markets, particularly with respect to the valuation of synthetic ABS instruments. The CDS of ABS market is growing rapidly and we are seeing an ever-increasing demand for benchmark data and independent valuations for this product."
According to the company release, Markit will leverage Chasen's structured finance expertise to develop further its Reference Cashflow Database (RCD), which is scheduled to launch later this year and will be used as the central monitoring and settlement platform for the CDS of ABS market. The release also stated that Markit's ABX calculator used for settlement of the ABX index trades and is free to market participants should also benefit from enhanced functionality.
Markit initially brought price transparency to the European ABS market by launching the first independent ABS pricing service last November. Early this year, Markit helped CDS IndexCo, the dealer consortium, launch ABX and CMBX, the synthetic ABS and CMBS indices. Last April, the company also launched a portfolio valuations service, which spans every OTC derivative products, to meet investor demand for independent valuations.
